Wild Spain Part 6

CHAPTER VII.

THE BaeTICAN WILDERNESS.

SPRING NOTES OF BIRD-LIFE AND NATURAL HISTORY IN THE MARISMA.

PART II.--MAY.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 ma.s.sed 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 s.p.a.ce, with clumps of pampas-gra.s.s and palmetto, genista, butcher's-broom, and wild fennel. Here a ma.s.s of _abolaga_, 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 s.p.a.ce lay streaked and dotted with flights and flotillas of aquatic fowl. The nearer foresh.o.r.es, 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 mult.i.tude had risen on wing as a single Booted Eagle swept over the scene.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate XV.

PINTAILED SAND-GROUSE: FEMALE. (_Pterocles alchata_.)

Page 85.]

Rambling along the sh.o.r.e, 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 gla.s.s 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 outmanuvring them. We stuck to them, however, and, after many failures, obtained some beautiful specimens of both s.e.xes, 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 pa.s.ses 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 s.e.xes, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STILTS--HOVERING OVERHEAD.]

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AVOCETS.]

A most curious picture do these singular birds present, either while flying past or hovering overhead on quick-beating pinions, with their absurdly long legs extending far behind like dead straws. The Avocet is much the more sprightly and game-like of the two, with his shrill pipe and elegant flight, now rapid and "jerky," now skimming low on the water. But we never tire of watching the quaint actions and postures of the Stilts, troops of which stalk sedately in the shallows close at hand. So extremely long are the legs of this bird that, with their short necks, they cannot reach down to the ground, nor pick anything up therefrom. They are consequently only to be seen feeding in water about knee-deep, for which purpose their peculiar build specially adapts them, picking up seeds, insects and aquatic plants from the surface.[21]

We found many nests of Peewit and Redshank, those of the latter by far the best concealed, always in some thick clump of gra.s.s or samphire.

Such familiar notes sound strangely incongruous amid the exotic bird-medley around, and the fact of their remaining to nest so far south is an ornithological curiosity. Birds which are at once inhabitants of the extreme north of Europe, and yet capable of enduring the summer-heats of the Andalucian plains, set at nought one's ideas of geographical distribution. As already mentioned, we also found in April the Dunlin nesting on the lower Guadalquivir, and our friend Mr. W. C.

Tait has detected the Common Sandpiper remaining to breed on the Lima and Minho in Portugal.

There also lay scattered on the dry mud many clutches of smaller eggs belonging to two other species, the Kentish Plover and Lesser Ring-dotterel. The latter, less common, were only beginning to lay, choosing the drier, gravelly ridges of the islets. The eggs of the Kentish plover we had found as early as April 14th, and in May many were already much incubated. Neither of these make any nest--nothing but a few broken sh.e.l.ls--and some eggs were deposited in a hollow scratched in dried cattle-droppings. On these islands were also many nests of the Spanish Short-toed lark (_Calandrella baetica_, Dresser--a species peculiar to this region), artlessly built of dry gra.s.s, and placed in small hollows like a dunlin's, sometimes among thistles, as often on bare ground without covert. We found the first eggs on May 9th. On the larger gra.s.sy islands there also breed the Calandra, Crested and Short-toed Larks, with Ortolan, Common and Reed-buntings.

_May 8th, 1872._--A remarkable pa.s.sage of waders occurred to-day: the banks of the Guadalete swarmed with bird-life, some of the oozes crowded with plovers, &c., as thick as they could stand. A mixed bag included whimbrels, grey plovers, ring-dotterel, curlew-sandpiper, sand-grouse, &c. Many of the Grey Plovers were superb specimens in perfect black-and-white plumage, and the Curlew-Sandpipers in richest rufous summer-dress. Unfortunately, the attractions of the Great Bustard, several of which were also in sight, proved irresistible: but I had the satisfaction of riding home that evening with my first bustard slung to the _alforjas_. The next day, as is often the case, hardly a pa.s.sage-bird was to be seen, and my bag only contained a pair of Grey Phalaropes, and a female Montagu's Harrier.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GREY PLOVERS--SUMMER-PLUMAGE.]

_May 9th, 1883._--The effects of dawn over the vast desolations of the marisma were specially beautiful this morning. Before sunrise the distant peaks of the Serrania de Ronda (seventy miles away) lay flooded in a blood-red light, and looking quite twice their usual height. Half an hour later the mountains sank back in a golden glow, and long before mid-day were invisible through the quivering heat-haze and the atmospheric fantasies of infinite s.p.a.ce. Amid a chaotic confusion of mirage-effects, we rode out across the level plain--at first across dry mud-flats, partly carpeted with a dwarf scrub of marsh-plants, in places bare and naked, the sun-scorched surface cracked into rhomboids and parallelograms, and honeycombed with deep cattle-tracks made long ago when the mud was moist and plastic. Then through shallow marsh and stagnant waters, gradually deepening. Here from a rushy patch sprang three yeld hinds from almost underfoot, and splashed off through the shallows, their russet coats gleaming in the morning sunlight. Gradually the water deepened: _mucha agua, mucho fango!_ groaned Felipe; but this morning we intended to reach the very heart of the marisma: and before ten o'clock were cooking our breakfast on a far-away islet whereon never British foot had trod before, and which was literally covered with Avocets' eggs, and many more.

Here, while I was busy selecting, numbering, and preparing some of the most typical clutches, Felipe, whom I had sent to explore another islet close by, came up with five eggs, which he said he thought must be gull's. I saw at a glance he was right, and jumping up, espied among the clamorous crowd of marsh-terns, avocets, stilts, pratincoles, and other birds overhead, a single pair of strangers--small, very long-necked gulls. These I promptly knocked down, and at once recognized as _Larus gelastes_, one of the rarest of the South European gulls, and of whose breeding-places and habits comparatively little was known. Only a few days before I had received a letter from Mr. Howard Saunders especially enjoining me to keep a strict look-out for "the beautiful pink-breasted, Slender-billed Gull"; we therefore at once commenced a careful investigation of all the islands in sight, never dreaming but that our two gulls and the five eggs were duly related to each other. It was therefore with no small surprise that shortly afterwards I found another gull's nest containing two very different eggs (white ground, spotted with black and brown like those of _Sterna cantiaca_), from which I also shot a female _L. gelastes_.[22] This time, however, there was no room for doubt: for the bird while in its death-throes actually laid a third egg in the water--a perfectly coloured and developed specimen, the exact counterpart of the two in the nest. Then, to make a.s.surance doubly sure, I found on skinning the first pair of gulls that the female contained a fourth perfectly developed specimen of this very distinct egg. This of course placed the ident.i.ty of the eggs of _L. gelastes_ beyond doubt: it was, however, equally certain that the first five eggs (which were dull greenish or stone-colour, faintly spotted with brown) belonged to some other species. Accordingly I returned to the first-named islands, and at once perceived two or three pairs of small black-hooded gulls: these had doubtless been overlooked in the morning, mixed up as they were among numbers of gull-billed terns and other birds. They would not allow approach within shot, so I was obliged to risk a long chance with wire-cartridge. The bird was "feathered," but escaped at the moment. Two days afterwards, however, on a second visit, I found it lying dead, and recognized it by the jet-black hood and strong bill as _Larus melanocephalus_, another of the rarer gulls, and presumably the owner of one of the first two nests. Those of the slender-billed gull, it should be added, were composed of yellow flags, the nests of _L. melanocephalus_ of black tamarisk-stalks and other dark materials. To obtain in a single morning the nests of two of the rarest of European breeding birds was a measure of luck that rarely falls to the lot of an ornithologist: though the discovery, made a few hours later, of the breeding quarters of the flamingoes, appears to carry more ornithological kudos--_quantum valeat_.

_May 11th._--The Pratincoles are now beginning to lay--one or two eggs in each nest: but subsequently we got them in baskets-full. Some of these eggs when freshly-laid have a beautiful purplish gloss. Three is their complement, and they make hardly any nest, merely a few broken chips of sh.e.l.ls. We also found to-day, on the marismas of Guadalete, two nests of the Montagu's Harrier, each with five or six eggs, mere outlines of broken twigs arranged on the bare soil, one among low scrub, the other in the corn. The Marsh-Harrier breeds much earlier. We found this year three nests at the end of March--much more solid structures, built of dead flags, &c.: one was in standing corn, another on the ground in a cane-brake, the third on the top of a dense bramble-thicket, fifteen feet high--a very awkward place to get at. Occasionally, where there was much water, we have found the Montagu's Harrier also nesting in brushwood, three or four feet above the ground. In the water beneath are strewn skulls of rabbits, vertebrae of lizards, &c.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE MARISMA--STILTS.]

Later, again, are the Terns: the Whiskered and Black species (_Hydrochelidon hybrida_ and _H. nigra_) breed in colonies both in the open marisma and on the lagoons of the Coto Donana, building their nests far out on the lilies and floating water-weeds. All these lay three eggs, those of the Whiskered Tern mostly greenish with black spots, a few olive-brown. The eggs of the Black Tern are much smaller, and of a rich liver-brown, heavily blotched with black. The larger Gull-billed Tern (_Sterna anglica_) breeds only on the islets of the marisma. I obtained their eggs, and those of the Lesser Tern (_S. minuta_) on my first visit on the 23rd of May.

These islands which we have just described lay some six or eight miles from the low sh.o.r.es of the marisma, and at that distance no land whatever was in sight. The _coup d'il_ therefrom presented an extraordinary scene of desolation. The only relief from the monotony of endless wastes of water were the birds. A shrieking, clamouring crowd hung overhead, while only a few yards away the surface was dotted with troops of stilts sedately stalking about, knee-deep--in no other situation do their long legs permit them to feed. Further away large flights of smaller waders flashed--now white, now dark,--in the sunlight. Most of these were ring-dotterels, dunlins, and curlew-sandpiper, the two latter in full summer-plumage. A marsh-harrier, oologically inclined, was being bullied and chased by a score of peewits: and now and then a little string of ducks high overhead would still remind one of winter. Beyond all these, the strange forms of hundreds of flamingoes met one's eye in every direction--some in groups or in dense ma.s.ses, others with rigidly outstretched necks and legs flying in short strings, or larger flights "glinting" in the sunshine like a pink cloud. Many pairs of old red birds were observed to be accompanied by a single white (immature) one. But the most extraordinary effect was produced by the more distant herds, the immense numbers of which formed an almost unbroken white horizon--a thin white line separating sea and sky round a great part of the circle.

But this chapter is long enough, and we must reserve for another the rest of our experiences among the flamingoes.

CHAPTER VIII.

WILD CAMELS IN EUROPE.

An incident occurred during our exploration of the marismas in the spring of 1883 which ill.u.s.trates the desolate and unknown character of these wildernesses, and also brought to light a curious fact in natural history. Far away on the level plain I noticed two large animals evidently watching me. They were certainly not deer, which in spring often wander out into the marisma, but never so far as to where I then was. They stood too high on their legs for deer, and had a much greater lateral width as they stood facing me--their contour, in fact, somewhat resembled a couple of the long-stemmed, conical-topped, stone-pines, which are so characteristic of the adjoining woodlands. But there was something in their appearance even at the distance that prompted an attempt to reach closer quarters--there was a distinct _game-look_ about them. I changed my cartridge for ball, and attempted an approach with all available caution, lying flat in the saddle and advancing obliquely by long "tacks," besides using the _patero's_, or native duck-shooter's, device of stopping at intervals to give the horse an appearance of grazing. But it was no use: while still a quarter of a mile away, the strangers simultaneously wheeled about and made off with shambling gait.

Then for the first time, when their broad-sides were exposed to view, I saw that they were two camels, one much larger than the other.[23]

Probably no one who reads this will be more surprised than was the writer at the apparition of the long-legged, long-necked, hump-backed pair; but there was no room for mistake, for a camel is like nothing else in creation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate XVI.

THE SPANISH WILD CAMELS--OUR FIRST SIGHT OF A PAIR IN THE MARISMA.

Page 94.]

The camels appeared to have no great pace, and for some distance I pursued them, but it was hopeless. Between us lay an _arroyo_, one of those wide stagnant channels that in spring intersect the dry parts of the marisma in all directions; and before getting clear of this, splashing through some hundred yards of mud and water, the bactrians were far away, scudding across a dead-level plain that extended to the horizon.

I had heard on my first visit to this wilderness (in 1872) of the existence of camels therein, and that they had lived there wild for forty years or more, but was as incredulous as perhaps some of our present readers may be, and as some certainly were when I first mentioned the fact in the _Ibis_, in January, 1884, though then corroborated by Mr. Howard Saunders, one of the joint-editors, in the following foot-note:--"I saw a small herd of these feral camels in the Coto de Donana, on the 3rd of May, 1868; but, finding that my statement as to the breeding of the crane in that neighbourhood was received with much incredulity, I kept the apparition of the camels to myself. I possessed the eggs of the crane to convince the sceptics, but I could not have produced a camel." Shortly afterwards the statement was somewhat contemptuously criticized by an anonymous writer in _The Field_, who claimed to be himself acquainted with the marismas, and ridiculed the idea of camels existing there in a wild state. "The startling statement," wrote _Inhlwati_, "as to the existence of wild camels in the neighbourhood of Seville or Lebrija has taken me and my friends who know that country well by utter surprise; and that camels should have been roaming about there and breeding, so to speak, as perfectly wild animals in a state of nature, seems to us utterly incredible.

"The marismas in the summer time are covered with cattle, and of course they are accompanied everywhere by their herdsmen; and, so to speak, every foot of open ground is more or less under daily inspection. And, as the camel is a grazing animal, it would naturally be found in the more open parts of these marismas or marshes, where they could hardly have avoided detection and, as a certain consequence, capture or death for so long a period as you mention.

"So valuable an animal would be such a prize to the poor Spanish peasants, that they would turn out to a man to obtain it; and there are, besides, too many English sportsmen at Seville and Jerez to allow the chance of so novel a chase to slip through their hands unnoticed.

"I may mention that a company is in existence for the drainage and better utilization of these marismas of Lebrija, and I can hardly imagine that such animals as camels could have escaped the notice of their surveyors and staff during their detailed surveys of the district.

"I may add, that my friend, the Belgian Consul at Seville, happens to be with me now, and quite agrees with what I have said. It would be very interesting if you could obtain any further news about these strange wanderers."

To this the following foot-note was appended by the Editor of _The Field_:--"It is somewhat strange that our correspondent should ask for further information respecting animals whose existence he regards as 'utterly incredible.' But the statement has not been made that there are wild camels anywhere near Seville. The districts explored by Mr. Abel Chapman are far removed from human habitation, and are not those in which herds of domestic cattle are ever seen. The fact that Mr. Chapman described for the first time the singular nests of the flamingo, which exists there in colonies, that have never before been figured [see next chapter], proves that neither _Inhlwati_ nor his friend can know the country well, and that 'every foot of ground' cannot possibly, as he states, 'be open to daily inspection.' The fact that the camels have been observed on different occasions by two well-known naturalists--men trained to the close and accurate observation of animals, who both give their names--should have ent.i.tled their remarks to a different reception."

We have inserted the above extracts in full partly because they are a good example of the reckless way some people are p.r.o.ne to rush into print, and who, because they may have some acquaintance with a subject, think they are thereby ent.i.tled to speak as with complete knowledge. The marismas of Lebrija are, as a matter of fact, many miles away on the other side of the Guadalquivir.