On a bright May morning we set out for a fortnight's sojourn in the western marismas. For the last few miles the route lies through broken woodlands, all wrapt in the glory of the southern spring-time. There is no lack of verdure here at mid-winter—not even the deciduous trees are ever really bare: but in May the whole plant-world is fresh-clad in brightest garb and beauty—it is worth staying a moment to examine such prodigal luxuriance. Before us, for example, is a grove of stone-pines, embedded to their centres amidst dark green thicket; through the massed foliage of lentiscus and briar shoots up a forest of waving bamboos, tall almost and straight as the pines themselves; the foreground filled with the delicate mauve of rosemary, with giant heather and heaths of a dozen hues, all wrestling for space, with clumps of pampas-grass and palmetto, genista, butcher's-broom, and wild fennel. Here a mass of abolága, or Spanish gorse, ablaze with golden bloom; an arbutus blanched with waxen blossoms, or the glossy foliage of mimosa; there the sombre tones of the ilex are relieved by the pale emerald of a wild vine entwined upon the trunk. Even the stretches of grey gum-cistus have become almost gaudy with their pink, white, and pale yellow flowers. The air breathes of vernal perfumes, and the infinite chorus of spring bird-notes—the soft refrain of Goldfinch and Serin, Nightingale, Hypolais polyglotta, Orphean and other warblers, the dual note of Hoopoe, and flute-like carol of Golden Orioles, mingled with the harsher cries of Woodchat and Bee-eater, and on all sides the 'voice of the Turtle was heard in the land.'
The sun was high in the heavens ere we cleared the fragrant pinales; yet in the last rushy glade we rode suddenly into a herd of wild pig; females with their half-grown young—probably the exigencies of the season explained their being astir at so unusual an hour. Shortly afterwards the writer almost trod on two boars, deeply slumbering in an isolated thicket—one an old tusker, grizzly with age, and looking almost white as he trotted away across the dunes.
Presently, through a vista of the forest, we sighted the marisma, its muddy expanse to-day blue as the Mediterranean. An animated scene lay before us; the wastes were thronged with bird-life. The horizon glistened with the sheen of Flamingoes in thousands, and the intervening space lay streaked and dotted with flights and flotillas of aquatic fowl. The nearer foreshores, fringed with rush and sedge and dark stretches of tamarisk, were peopled with Storks and Herons, Egrets, Spoonbills, Stilts, Avocets, and other waders. While breakfasting under a spreading pine, we observed commotion among our feathered neighbours—the whole multitude had risen on wing as a single Booted Eagle swept over the scene.
Rambling along the shore, we obtained many beautiful specimens by stalking, including most of those above named, as well as a pair of Marbled Ducks, a wild-cat, and other "sundries." Presently we observed with the glass a score or so of Knots, in full red summer-plumage, busily feeding rather far out. While creeping to them, a Marsh-Harrier rose from some rushes close at hand; I knocked him down and found he was lunching on a Knot. The latter we could not see again—though later in the month they were in thousands—but made out a "bunch" of Greenshanks feeding a little further on, one of which fell to a long shot—an immature bird. Curiously, we found no adults here, though in March they were numerous in some disused salinas beyond Tangier, but no young ones. The adults are distinguishable by their whiter appearance at a distance.
Our course lay across a wide bight of the marisma, which projects into the land. Crossing this, nearly knee-deep in mud and water in many parts, we fell in with three packs of Sand-Grouse (Pterocles alchata). They were excessively wild, flying fast and high, something like teal, anon like plover, and uttering a chorus of harsh croaks. On the open marsh we almost despaired of outmanœuvring them. We stuck to them, however, and, after many failures, obtained some beautiful specimens of both sexes, and well worth the trouble they were; for no bird we have ever seen rivals the Pin-tailed Sand-Grouse for delicacy of pencilling and the harmonious contrasts of infinite colours in its plumage. In the females especially, the spring-plumage is so variegated as to defy description, the patterns, so to speak, being as elaborate as the tints. Briefly, her back is finely reticulated with yellows and browns, blacks and maroons of various shades, all relieved by clean-cut bars of pale blue. Her head is speckled above the black line which passes through the eye; below that, the cheeks and throat are plain buff, and the chest clear bright chestnut, doubly margined with black and with a pale blue band above. In the male the features of the spring-plumage are a black throat, and a line of that colour through the eye. The pale sage-green back is covered with large lemon spots, some of which extend to the scapulars and tertiaries. The eye-circlets and eyelids are bright blue in both sexes, and at all seasons: of their winter-dress and habits we write elsewhere; but no description or sketch of ours can do adequate justice to this gem among birds.
The name of sand-grouse is not appropriate, for they are in no sense grouse, and are never found on sand—always on mud, and when shot their feet and bills are generally covered therewith. There is another and larger species, the Black-bellied Sand-Grouse (Pterocles arenarius), which is not found here, but is very abundant in parts of the upper marisma, towards Seville, and especially in the so-called Isla Menor, where we have shot several when bustard-driving, and found a nest with three long elliptic eggs on May 28th, besides seeing several others found by our men. These birds—in Spanish Corteza—nest on the bare pasturages of the upper marisma, and also on the high central plateaux of Spain, in Castile, La Mancha, &c., a very different region. The Pin-tailed species is known as Ganga, signifying a bargain, in reference to its edible qualities.
After heavy rains in April, the mud and water in the marisma were unpleasantly deep for either riding or walking—we had now abandoned the punts; and on the low islands many thousands of eggs had been destroyed by the rising of the water. A great variety of birds were now nesting, Stilts and Avocets being, perhaps, the most conspicuous. We found a few eggs of both on the mud-flats to-day (May 5th), but a few days later they were in thousands. The Stilts make a fairly solid nest of dead black stalks of tamarisk, &c., and lay four richly-marked eggs, all arranged points inwards; the Avocet's eggs are larger and lighter in colour, and these birds seldom have any nest at all, the three eggs merely laid at random on the bare cracked mud, often an inch or two apart. Three is the usual complement.
