. Wild Spain ... records of sport with rifle, rod, and gun, natural history and exploration . was dark ferrugi-nous (not white below, as represented in Bree ) andwith a silky, grebe-like sheen. These singular ducks, we found, were well known to theguardas as patos porrones (porron—a knob), andsubsequently found several pairs at the Laguna deMedina, a lake near Jerez, where, on the I23rd May,they were evidently breeding. The lake was also occu-pied by numbers of the Great Crested Grebe {Podicipescristatus), quaint-looking birds in their full nests of the Little Grebe may be fou
. Wild Spain ... records of sport with rifle, rod, and gun, natural history and exploration . was dark ferrugi-nous (not white below, as represented in Bree ) andwith a silky, grebe-like sheen. These singular ducks, we found, were well known to theguardas as patos porrones (porron—a knob), andsubsequently found several pairs at the Laguna deMedina, a lake near Jerez, where, on the I23rd May,they were evidently breeding. The lake was also occu-pied by numbers of the Great Crested Grebe {Podicipescristatus), quaint-looking birds in their full nests of the Little Grebe may be found floating inevery rushy pool. The width of the lagoon would barely exceed half-a-mile ;its shores all furrowed by wild boar in their search for (jviUos,or mole-crickets, and dotted with the skeletons of water-tortoises, and beyond its glancing waters rolled stretchesof grey scrub and heath, backed in the distance by sand-dunes and corrales, the outliers of the desolate avenalcsthat extend to the sea-coast. Beneath a straggling beltof pines there were sheltering from the mid-day heat a. bo -72I 00 =5 ■^ ^ aa o H I—I Xo BIRD-LIFE OF THE SPANISH SPRING-TIME. 271 group of wild-bred cattle ; and a little apart stood three orfour big bulls of the fighting breed :—-formidable beaststhat demand a wide berth. More shaggy cattle, knee-deep in water, were dreamily ruminating, each form sur-mounted by a white bird, the Buff-backed Heron—inSpanish Agarrajmtosa or tick-eater—some apparentlyasleep, others busily searching for prey. Nearer still,among the islanded patches of sedge and carices, stalked apair of Little Egrets, their long, thin necks arched withinfinite grace, and heads poised to strike with deadly pre-cision any darting larva or water-beetle they detect amongthe floating weeds. The heron-tribe is strongly represented in Andalucia ;in spring and summer almost every European formadorns these remote and marshy regions. During Ma}^the Buff-backed Herons were flying all
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