WILDFOWL AND WILDFOWLING 
The system chiefly adopted is shooting at the natural morning -flight ; 
afterwards setting up the fowl then secured to act as decoys during the 
rest of the day. In the most favourable seasons — ^which occur only at 
irregular intervals, being dependent on rainfall at particular periods— 
excellent results attend this flight-shooting. Totals of 100 up to near 
200, and on rare occasions more, have been recorded by single guns in 
the day. The variety of the game lends an added charm. No less than six- 
teen different species of the duck -tribe figure in our lists, while seven or 
eight will commonly be secured in a day’s sport. The most numerous 
are always wigeon and teal, pintail in certain seasons running them 
fairly close, while shovelers abound. Next to these come gad wall, marbled 
duck (in autumn only), a few mallard and sheld -ducks of both kinds, 
together with pochards of three species, tufted ducks, and, in March, the 
garganey. The scoter I have once shot, but the singular white -faced 
duck only arrives in April — after the shooting is finished. 
Add to these whirling hosts of varied wildfowl the weird forms of 
flamingos in thousands — some nearly always in sight— and stately 
skeins of greylag geese sailing in majestic flight through the hubbub of 
minor fowl, and you have within view a panorama of wild bird -life that 
would surely be hard to equal outside of this primeval corner of Europe. 
The wild geese which winter in Spain are practically all greylags. 
Among thousands shot, we find but a single bernacle and a few stray 
bean geese, none of the latter within recent years. 
No branch of the sport presents greater difficulties than the chase 
of the wild grey -goose, nor is any bird that flies harder to secure. His 
natural astuteness, ceaseless vigilance, and the tactical advantage derived 
from his bare, open haunts, place his pursuit all but outside ordinary 
chances of success. In Spain, after years of effort and devising many 
schemes — oft in vain — we have latterly developed certain methods to a 
degree of perfection that offers at least reasonable hope. These, however, 
being strictly local and applying only to particular circumstances in 
Spain, and as they have been already described in detail in the volume 
last quoted, they need not here be recapitulated. The following is a brief 
diagnosis ; 
(1) Driving. In very dry seasons, when the marismas are practically 
waterless, this system becomes possible. By sending three or four 
mounted men round a band of geese, the latter may, by skilled manage- 
ment, be driven towards a line of guns concealed on a sun-dried plain 
409 
GGG 
