It illustrates the exertions made by the partridges to attain an altitude and a speed sufficient to carry them safely over the clearly-seen danger below, that should a bird which has succeeded in thus running the gauntlet happen to be found after the beat is over, it will often be too exhausted to rise again. Such tired birds are often caught by the dogs.
As many as six or eight averos, as they are termed, may be carried out during a winter’s day. The walking in places is apt to be rough, through jungle and bush—chiefly cistus and rosemary, but intermixed with tree-heaths, brooms, and gorse—intercepted with stretches of water which must be waded without wincing, for it is essential that each man (gun or beater) maintains correctly his allotted position in the advance.
Naturally in a sandy waste, devoid of corn or tillage of any kind, partridge cannot be numerous. They are, moreover, subject to terrible enemies in the eagles, kites, and hawks of every description; while lynxes, wild-cats, foxes, and other beasts-of-prey take daily and nightly toll; then in spring their eggs are devoured by the big lizards, by harriers, mongoose, and magpies in thousands. We have recently endeavoured to increase their numbers by grubbing up 300 acres of scrub and cultivating wheat. But here again Nature opposes us. Deer break down the fences, ignore our guards armed with lanterns and blank cartridge, trample down more than they eat, and the rabbits finish the rest! Moreover, in wet seasons the ground is flooded, the crops destroyed; while, if too dry, the seed will not germinate, and all the time the unkillable brushwood comes and comes again.
Forty or fifty brace represent average days; though it is fair to add that they are but few who fully avail the fleeting opportunities at those back-swerving dots in the sky.
Rabbits
The cistus plains abound with rabbits. One sees them by scores moving ahead, but just beyond gunshot range, which they calculate to a nicety. Others dart from underfoot to disappear in an instant in the cover. Few are shot while walking; but some pretty sport is obtainable by short drives, say a quarter-mile. The line of keepers and beaters ride round to windward, encircling some well-stocked bush; then slowly and noisily, with frequent halts, advance down-wind—the rabbit is as susceptible of scent as a deer. Meanwhile the dogs are having a rare time of it hustling the bunnies forward. The guns are placed each to command some clear spot, for where scrub grows thick nothing can be seen. A momentary glimpse is all one gets, and snap-shooting essential. The most favourable spots are where a strip of open ground lies immediately behind the guns. The rabbits fairly fly this, a dozen at a time, and at speed that suggests some one having set fire to their tails.
In days of phenomenal bags, our Spanish totals read humble enough. We frequently kill a hundred or more rabbits in two or three short drives, besides such partridge as may also have been enclosed. Were a whole day devoted to rabbits alone, much greater numbers would of course result. But having such variety of resource at disposal (to say nothing of difficulty in disposing of large quantities), the conejete rarely receives more than an hour or two’s attention.
Hares (Lepus mediterraneus), common all over Spain, are rather more numerous in the marisma than on the drier grounds. They have indeed developed semi-aquatic habits, in times of flood swimming freely from island to island and making arboreal “forms” in the half-submerged samphire-bush. Should the whole become submerged, the hares betake themselves to the main shore, and on such occasions, with two guns, we have shot a dozen or so on a drive. These small Spanish hares are marvellously fleet of foot, especially when an almost equally fleet-footed podenco is in full chase over ground as flat and bare as a bowling-green.
In these hares the females are larger and greyer in colour than the males. Their irides are yellow, with a small pupil, whereas in the male the eye is hazel and the pupil large. The fur of the latter is bright chestnut in hue, especially on hind-quarters and legs, which frequently show irregular splashes of white. The lower parts are purest white, and along the clean-cut line of demarcation the colour contrasts are the strongest. Long film-like hairs grow far beyond the ordinary fur on their bodies, and the tails are longer and carried higher than in our British species.
| Weights of Ten Spanish Hares, killed January 30, 1908 | ||||||
| Males | 4½ | 4½ | 4½ | 4½ | 4½ | lbs., deadweight |
| Females | 4¾ | 5 | 5½ | 5½ | 5½ | lbs., deadweight |