of flamingoes by the thousand! The adjacent swamps, moreover, swarmed with the most bloodthirsty breed of leeches on this earth! Casually, she also mentioned that quinine cost as much as bread in her household budget. The Veta Lengua may be a Paradise for wildfowl and the wildfowler, but hardly a desirable spot to rear a big family?

A PHYSIOLOGICAL PROBLEM.

My co-Author of Wild Spain, the late Walter J. Buck, wrote me on 14th January 1914:

"During the last duck-shooting in the marisma, Bertie one day had 180 pintail and wigeon, and also brought home alive a flamingo, adult, one of four that he dropped from a passing pack, and this curious thing has taken place. Instead of being a scared impossible creature, requiring months to become domesticated-as they usually do -he (or she) has within a few days recovered from a temporarily dazed sort of existence and become all at once more tame, more healthy and beautiful than the others we have had here for years-tamer, in fact, than any of the wildfowl on our waters. The wound was in the head-an eye being injured; and the effect of that one shot, it seems, has been to obliterate all memory of the bird's previous life. A new phase has been started-one in which the proximity of men and dogs, the fact of feeding out of a tub, and walking about a lawn, have come quite naturally and cause no surprise. Never have I seen the like before."

ANOTHER MEMORY-(Entirely different).

SCENE, in a train. Was about to light my pipe when the only other passenger (whose luggage resembled a coffin wrapped up in green baize) pointed out that it was a non-smoking compartment. Asked if he really objected, his reply was, "Me moleste la pechuga" (=it injures my chest). At the first stoppage, I got out (in pelting rain) to seek a smoker; but, the train being crowded, returned to find my fellow-passenger playing a gigantic fiddle-or violin, or similar awesome instrument. He asked if I enjoyed music, to which my reply was, "Me moleste el estomago.” That journey continued in

silence, uninspired by either Muse.

CHAPTER XVIII

SPANISH MEMORIES (continued)

WILDFOWLING IN THE MARISMA.

IN SPAIN the operation of wildfowling and its scale, alike strategically and tactically, rests upon a broader basis than the pursuit as practised elsewhere in western Europe. That follows by virtue of the extent and physical conditions of its scene. For nowhere else are there found such immense areas of flooded alluvial plains as those comprehended under the term 'Marisma." It may convey a sense of the vastness of these watery wildernesses to mention that a geometric mind among our shooting - partners reckoned out that our Own holding in the Boetican marismas exceeded 400 square miles. That calculation, moreover, was made after we had lost (by death) our tenure of the adjoining Coto Doñana which, with its own equally extensive marismas, we had also occupied during some thirty years. The figure may be approximately correct, though I would hesitate to guarantee it to an inch or two. Elsewhere folk are wont to reckon their holdings rather in acres than in hundreds of miles?

Be it a few leagues greater or less, the whole superficies of the marisma is one great dead-level of featureless flats— note that wherever you find massed wildfowl, "scenery" is always absent. During winter the whole region is largely submerged, though the growth of low samphire-scrub partially conceals the water-surface. Still, there also lie league-long lagoons of open water (lucios, the favourite diurnal resort of the ducks), interspersed with scattered islets great and small— varying from a few yards to thousands of acres in extent: while certain slight depressions—the channels whereby hibernal

floods find exit-though otherwise imperceptible in the farflung monotony, are marked by sinuous lines of cane-brakes 10 or 15 feet high, and often miles in length. Each of these is distinguished by some local name-such as El Travierso, Caño Dulce, or Buen Tiro-as familiar to the fowler as the Strand or Piccadilly to Londoners! In winter the marisma forms a rendezvous for half the wildfowl of western Europe: while in spring and summer it provides nurseries for a wealth of bird-life wondrous to witness. But are not all these things chronicled in Wild Spain?

Prior to our appearance on the scene, these marismas had been exploited exclusively by Spanish professional fowlers, whose livelihood during successive generations had depended upon shooting "for the market" with their trained Cabresto ponies. Not unnaturally, these good folk were at first inclined to resent the assumption of exclusive rights, particularly by foreigners; but sympathy is the passport to every Spanish heart, and the transitional epoch (though not without incident) was of brief duration. It ended in our enlisting, not merely the services of the displaced fowlers, but the fowlers themselves personally as valued friends and keepers-posts which they, or their successors in fresh generations, retain to this day. Precisely how valuable these wild Guardas have proved to our enterprise, and how much we owe to their skill in fowling-craft, is in frequent evidence throughout our books.

Naturally the aboriginal system of shooting by concerted broadsides from behind stalking-horses, appealed little to our cynegetic tastes. In its inception it was purely a "market business" so that, after experimental essays, sufficient to acquire full personal knowledge of the modus operandi, we abandoned the practice, save only as a curious survival which certainly had its own specific interest. Especially was this the case to a naturalist, since by its means there were revealed intimate life-studies of wildfowl-at-home and at closer quarters than could be attained by any other known system on earth.

[Incidentally, our Spanish fowlers' ambitions always ran to "Veinte pares al primero tiro" = Twenty couple at the first shot! and they

often exceeded that.

With modern and more powerful weapons, we sometimes went even further, as a few random extracts from diaries will serve to show, thus:

:

1st January 1898-Fired three broadsides (W. J. B. and A. C.), recovering 62 +33 +69—total, 164 duck, mostly wigeon.

31st January 1905 - Same two guns, in three broadsides, 27+51 +48 126 duck, all wigeon.

=

29th December 1893-Same two guns, one shot, 78 teal, besides several coots. This was at the Laguna de Santolalla.

18th January 1894-Broadside of five barrels, 198 duck, mostly teal, also at Santolalla.]

Throughout the antecedent period, the wildfowl (never having been molested save by those rare broadsides from behind a decoy-pony) were for a time easier to manœuvre by more modern methods than they presently became; but they realised the change with all the astuteness of their race and with surprising rapidity and aptitude. Within a year or two they had become educated up to the tenth standard of perfection in ceaseless vigilance, in a suspicion that never relaxed, and a superlative wildness. After all, these are the only qualities by which any creature of value can hope to succeed in the modern Struggle for Existence. Amateur legislators please note.

The story of those earlier years and of the series of systems devised and then abandoned, or replaced by some later scheme as the intensity of the contest developed-ever a Homeric duel to assure to ourselves some measure of relative "Dominion" over such crafty opponents-all this is told in our earlier works.1 Yet, looking back in retrospect, it is right to emphasise that whatever measure of success we attained was always (then as now) due in no small degree to the innate intuition of our Spanish fowlers into the instincts and mentality of the quarry. Virtually these men were specialists, having, generation after generation, studied the ways of wildfowl as their main source. of subsistence. They proved, nevertheless, surprisingly apt at realising the changed circumstances the totally new aspects

1 The stanchion-gun proved a total failure,

from which wildfowl were henceforth to be regarded-no longer as merely sordid counters in a market-deal, but as worthy opponents in the strenuous struggle for Dominion-a far loftier niche. From the first they appreciated the merits of the new ideal and adapted themselves with zeal to solve (with ourselves) the various problems it presented.

Of course in a vast space populated solely by ducks and

Two GENERATIONS OF SPANISH WILDFOWLERS.

Showing type of craft used in navigating the Marisma.

geese, literally in millions, and which at stated intervals "flight" hither and thither in the daily quest of food and rest, even a tyro might occasionally by the merest chance of luck, load up a cargo. Such fortuitous fortune, however, never appealed to our ambitions. Not pride, but honest aspirations to reach the higher levels in fowling, the artistry of the craft, soar higher. The ultimate objective should always be to exploit maximum results-not casual successes.

As already suggested, this Spanish wildfowling is based upon a broader plane and carried out on a scale that has no exact counterpart elsewhere. At first, we adopted the system