[17] The bull-fighters and their friends affect a language peculiar to the Plaza: a dialect of systematic construction. To acquire a knowledge of this "Jerga" (La Germania), with its idiomatic piquancy and raciness, is the aim of the "fancy" young men, the Flamencos of Southern Spain. To be in the circle of the popular bull-fighters, with its perilous female entourage, is considered chic by certain gilded youth. Flamenco-ism appears to find its beau idéal in the borderland which lies between the bizarre existence of the "torero" and the Gitano or gypsy. (See chapter on the Spanish Gypsy of to-day.)
[18] The mancha of Salavar in the Coto Doñana is an example of one of these green oases amidst barren, lifeless sand-wastes.
[19] These Godwits (Limosa belgica) are more common on passage earlier in the spring. We have seen flights of many hundreds in February and March. The Common Bar-tailed Godwit (Limosa rufa) we have never chanced to meet with here, either in winter or spring—only on its southern passage, in September.
[20] Kittiwakes and Black-headed Gulls in swarms during March and early April, whitening acres of water. The latter remained till perfect summer-plumage is attained (by March 21st). Little Gulls frequent: on two occasions (in February and March) observed in scores. Larus fuscus and L. argentatus were common in March, and on April 5th we obtained an adult of L. marinus in the marisma. Of British Terns, S. cantiaca and S. fluviatilis, were noticed in early spring.
[21] When first hatched, the legs of the young Stilts are quite short; but by mid-June are of medium length, pale clay-colour, and curiously swollen about the knee-joint. The upper plumage of the young at that date is mottled brown, irides brown. By the following January these young Stilts have acquired a black and white plumage; but the irides remain dark, and the legs a pale pink. The adults vary in the disposition of black and white in their plumage, especially on head and neck, and some few have the breast prettily tinged with roseate.
[22] A pair of the L. gelastes shot this day (together with some other of our Spanish specimens) are now set up in the Hancock Museum at Newcastle-on-Tyne.
[23] From the dates subsequently given, it would appear that the young camels are produced about the month of February, or perhaps earlier.
[24] With the possible exception of those stated to have been discovered in the Kum-tagh deserts of Central Asia by Col. Prejevalsky, the Russian explorer.
[25] Wild-bred cattle, many of them destined for the bull-rings of Jerez or Seville.
[26] The repugnance evinced by horses towards the camel was known ages ago. At the battle of Sardis (B.C. 546) this equine weakness was utilized by Cyrus in opposing to the Lydian cavalry a vanguard of camels (Herodotus, Clio, pp. 78, 80). A similar stratagem was proposed by Amurath I. at the decisive battle of Kossova between the Ottoman army and the Confederate hosts of Servia, Bosnia, and Wallachia, August 27th, 1389, but was abandoned in deference to the fiery impetuosity of Prince Bajazet and some supposed precepts of the Koran.