. Wild Spain ... records of sport with rifle, rod, and gun, natural history and exploration . y more ornithological kudos—quantum valeat. May 11th.—The Pratincoles are now beginning to lay—oneor two eggs in each nest: but subsequently we got them inbaskets-full. Some of these eggs when freshly-laid have a * A pair of the L. gelastes shot this day (together with some otherof our Spanish specimens) are now set up in the Hancock Museum atNewcastle-on-Tvne. 92 WILD SPAIN. beautiful purplish gloss. Three is their complement, andthey make hardly any nest, merely a few broken chipsof shells. We also
. Wild Spain ... records of sport with rifle, rod, and gun, natural history and exploration . y more ornithological kudos—quantum valeat. May 11th.—The Pratincoles are now beginning to lay—oneor two eggs in each nest: but subsequently we got them inbaskets-full. Some of these eggs when freshly-laid have a * A pair of the L. gelastes shot this day (together with some otherof our Spanish specimens) are now set up in the Hancock Museum atNewcastle-on-Tvne. 92 WILD SPAIN. beautiful purplish gloss. Three is their complement, andthey make hardly any nest, merely a few broken chipsof shells. We also found to-day, on the marismas ofGuadalete, two nests of the Montagus Harrier, each withfive or six eggs, mere outlines of broken twigs arranged onthe bare soil, one among low scrub, the other in the Marsh-Harrier breeds much earlier. We found thisyear three nests at the end of March—much more solidstructures, built of dead flags, &c. : one was in standingcorn, another on the ground in a cane-l^rake, the third onthe top of a dense bramble-thicket, fifteen feet high—a. IX THE MARISMA—STILTS. very awkward place to get at. Occasionally, where therewas much water, we have found the Montagus Harrier alsonesting in brushwood, three or four feet above the the water beneath are strewn skulls of rabbits, ver-tebrae of lizards, Szc. Later, again, are the Terns : the Whiskered and Blackspecies (HijdrocJirlidoii Jif/hrida and H. nir/ra) breed incolonies both in the open marisma and on the lagoons ofthe Goto Donana, building their nests far out on the liliesand floating water-weeds. All these lay three eggs, thoseof the Whiskered Tern mostly greenish with black spots, afew olive-brown. The eggs of the Black Tern are much THE BiETICAN WILDERNESS MAY. 93 smaller, and of a rich liver-brown, heavily blotched withblack. The larger Gull-billed Tern {Stcnia anglica) breedsonly on the islets of the marisma. I obtained their eggs,and those of the Lesser Tern (.S. ininii
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