Wild Spain Part 7

No doubt it is a "startling statement" that wild camels are roaming at large in Europe, or anywhere else--it would hardly seem more incredible if a herd of hippopotami were reported in the Upper Thames. The camel has never within historic times been known to exist in a wild state: it has always been the servant of man, a beast of burden and domesticity.[24] More than this, a certain physical disability or cause has been alleged to exist, which, if correct, would render their permanent continuance, in a natural state, an impossibility. Nor could any region be well conceived so ill-adapted--indeed repulsive--to the known habits and requirements of an animal always a.s.sociated with arid sandy deserts, as the Spanish marismas, which, always marshy, are subject to actual inundation during six months out of the twelve.

The discussion had, at any rate, the merit of evoking the following additional information respecting the Spanish camels, their introduction and habits. First I will quote a letter from my co-author, dated from the Coto Donana, March 1st. "Dear Chapman,--Your letter has reached me here, where we are shooting deer for the last time this season. I am glad I happened to be on the spot, having an opportunity of asking the _guardas_ and others for the facts respecting the camels, which I hope will be sufficient to convince the sceptics of their existence here and of the truth of your observation, which I am surprised to hear has been called in question.

"The camels were brought here first from the Canary Isles by Domingo Castellanos, _Administrador_ to the Marques de Villa Franca, in 1829, he intending to make use of them in the Coto for transporting timber, charcoal, &c. The descendants of this Domingo, the two brothers Barrera of Almonte, now own the fifty or sixty animals which make the marisma lying between the Coto proper and the Guadalquivir their feeding-ground.

They seldom appear on the wooded parts, remaining winter and summer in the marisma, moving with the greatest ease in winter through the mud and water, from one island to another, occasionally coming to the woods to pasture on the tops of the young pines.

"You know, from your flamingo experiences, how vast a waste is comprised between the borders of the Coto and the river (Guadalquivir) which accounts for the camels being seldom seen except by herdsmen and others (Mr. Abel Chapman, to wit) whose business may take them out into the watery wilderness. Manuel Ruiz, _conocedor_ of the Villa-Vilviestre herd,[25] now tells me that at about three-quarters of a league from the Cerro-Trigo he saw yesterday three females with their young, which he judged to be about twenty days old.

"I can send you any further particulars required, and if the unbelievers will not swallow your camel, we must do what Mr. Saunders did with the doubted specimen [of the crane's egg], and bring before them a Spanish-born camel, hump and all. Nothing is easier. Sport pretty good so far--five stags, four pigs, two lynxes."

We are also kindly privileged to quote the following statement of Lord Lilford's personal observation of the wild camels:--"I was not aware till I saw Saunders' note at the end of your paper and read the subsequent correspondence in _The Field_, that any one doubted the existence of camels in a virtually wild state in the marisma. I once saw four or five of them together at a vast distance, and, in 1872, came across their 'spoor' several times when exploring the marismas of the Coto. Their existence is perfectly well known to many people at San Lucar, and, no doubt, also at Jerez. I heard of them first in 1856.... What Mr. Buck says of the habits of the camel is, as far as I can remember, pretty much what I heard from several of the _guardas_ of the Coto in 1872.... My son reminds me of what I had quite forgotten, viz., that he and our doctor saw some camels in the marisma somewhere on the proper right of the western branch of the Guadalquivir last May (1888), when I was confined to my s.h.i.+p by an attack of gout in the right hand."

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

WILD CAMELS--THROUGH THE BINOCULARS

Page 98.]

Lastly, we quote the following from a "Catalogue of the Mammalia of Andalucia," by Don Antonio Machado y Nunez, published at Seville in 1869:--"The first camels, which were introduced with the object of breeding them, came from the Canary Islands, and in a few years became a herd of about eighty. In 1833, a few years after introduction, they were used as beasts of burden and transport in the province of Cadiz, employed in the carriage of materials used in making the high road from Port St. Mary to San Lucar de Barrameda (more than thirty years ago), and also in conveyances to Arcos, Jerez, Chichlana, and other towns. But some untoward accidents on the roads through horses being frightened at the sight of such strange animals,[26] and the necessity of separating them from horses in the yards, combined with other matters easy to remedy, caused them to fall into disuse as beasts of burden and carriage, and thus the economy and advantages obtained by their introduction were lost. They were then used for agricultural purposes, and some lands which Don Rafael de Barrera holds are at this time (1869) cultivated by the aid of camels, which are used for ploughing and other agricultural work."

At the present time the descendants of these camels live and nourish in the marismas in a wholly wild state, and since the sequestration of the Messrs. Barrera are practically ownerless.

We have fallen in with them on several subsequent occasions. On January 6th, 1888, we descried a herd of nineteen, of various sizes, all dreamily ruminating, knee-deep in the marisma, each form reflected in the still water beneath. Our whole shooting-party (including seven or eight Englishmen) enjoyed the sight, the herd remaining in view during the half-hour we spent at lunch on the edge of the marisma. With powerful field-gla.s.ses we brought the camels close up, and watched them putting their heads down as though grazing on the gra.s.ses beneath the surface. Presently they moved on to a rushy islet some three miles from the sh.o.r.e: hard by stood a rosy troop of flamingoes, and the intervening waters were dotted with numberless fleets of ducks and geese. It was a unique spectacle, one that could hardly be matched outside this out-of-the-world corner of Europe.

In 1890, and again several times in the spring of 1891, we fell in with camels. On March 5th we rode within 500 yards of eight, two of which were about the size of sheep. In appearance they are very s.h.a.ggy beasts, and vary much in colour, some being of a light tawny hue, while others are very dark brown, but all seem _grey_ about the neck.

On one of these occasions a curious incident occurred. It was in December, 1890--an intensely cold and dry season, almost unprecedented in Spain for the severity of the frost--when, in mid-marisma, leagues from water or covert, and specially on the look-out for camels, a keen eye detected in the far distance a roving fox. All dismounted, and letting the horses graze, hid behind them and awaited his approach.

Then, with only a single _podenco_, or hunting-dog, _Frascuelo_ by name, and after a straight-away chase of five or six miles at top-speed over a sun-dried plain, bare and level as a billiard-table, we fairly rode bold Reynard down, and killed him.

As evidence of the "staying powers" of the camel, our friend Antonio Trujillo tells us that some years ago he came on one stuck in a bog. For six days he was unable to reach the spot, and daily watched the poor beast helplessly floundering. On the seventh day he found it possible to a.s.sist the camel to escape. All around within reach of the poor creature's mouth, he found that the very earth was eaten away. Yet when helped to regain firm ground, the camel walked quietly away, apparently but little the worse, and was soon browsing heartily on the tops of some young pine-trees.

It is, perhaps, worth adding, in reference to the antipathy shown by horses towards camels, that when during the night bands of the latter have occasionally strayed from the marismas to the vicinity of our shooting-lodge of Donana, at once a commotion has broken out in the stables, though placed in an enclosed square. All at once the horses have begun shrieking, kicking, and displaying every sign of fear, which could only be explained by their detecting the effluvia of some pa.s.sing camels.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER IX.

AMONG THE FLAMINGOES.

NOTES ON THEIR HAUNTS AND HABITS, AND THE DISCOVERY OF THEIR "INCUNABULA."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Though Flamingoes are found in many of the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, and their rosy battalions are familiar to Eastern travellers through Egypt and the Suez Ca.n.a.l, yet their mode of nesting, and especially the manner in which birds of so singular a form could dispose of their extremely long legs while incubating, has remained an unsettled question. Till within the last decade, in default of more recent observations, sundry ancient fables have pa.s.sed current. Dampier described the nests of flamingoes seen by him two hundred years ago--in September, 1683--on one of the Cape de Verde Islands, as being high conical mounds of mud upon which the female sat astride ("Voyages," i., pp. 70, 71); and for two centuries this cavalier position has been accepted as history, no further observations having been made, though flamingoes have nested irregularly in various parts of Europe--even in France (in the marshy Camargue, the delta of the Rhone), and in Southern Spain.

In the latter country several efforts have been made by naturalists to obtain more precise knowledge of the breeding habits of the flamingo, especially by Lord Lilford and Mr. Howard Saunders, but, from various causes, without definite results. "The heat on those plains in June, when the flamingoes are said to nest," wrote the latter, "is something tropical, and it is no joke to wander for days over a district as large as our 'Eastern Counties,' on the _chance_ of stumbling upon a colony of flamingoes somewhere or other." The element of chance, however, is a potent factor, and it eventually fell to the writer's lot to discover that for which other and better naturalists had sought in vain. The following is a narrative of our explorations in the marisma in the spring of 1883:--

The first encounter with flamingoes that year had a somewhat ludicrous result: after riding all day across the wastes, we had arrived towards sunset within sight of our quarters for the night, when a herd of these birds was observed feeding in a reed-girt creek. They seemed unusually favourably placed for a stalk--for these wary fowl seldom approach within shot of the slightest covert; but on reaching the outermost rushes, the pack was seen to be at a hopeless range, and rose immediately on my appearance. To my surprise, a "treble A"

wire-cartridge nevertheless dropped four--three falling direct to the shot, and a fourth "towering" and falling dead a little further out. One tall fellow was only winged, and seeing that he was walking right away from me, and getting into deeper water, Felipe took my horse and rode round to cut him out. Meanwhile the short twilight was over, and darkness overtook us some distance out in the dreary marisma. In the gloom I mistook the bearings, and only, after splas.h.i.+ng about for a time that seemed eternal, managed to reach the sh.o.r.e, laden with three huge birds, wet through, hungry, and hopelessly lost. For a mile or two I struggled on through thorn and tangled brushwood, till at last, coming suddenly upon a herd of sleeping beasts--bulls, for all I could tell--I gave it up, and decided to weather out the night in the jungle, with the sand for a couch, and a flamingo for a pillow. Great was the relief, about midnight, to hear a distant shot; I responded with a fusillade, and shortly afterwards B----, with Felipe, and Trujillo's mighty frame loomed through the darkness, and the duress was at an end.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLAMINGOES ON FEED.]

During the month of April we searched the marisma systematically for the breeding-places of the flamingoes: but though we explored a large area, riding many leagues in all directions from our base through mud and water, varying from a few inches to three or even four feet in depth, yet we could see, at this season, no sign of nests. Flamingoes there were in plenty, together with ducks, divers, waders, and many kinds of aquatic birds already described: but the water was still too deep--the mud-flats and new-born islets not sufficiently dried for purposes of nidification, and as far as we could see the only species which had actually commenced to lay were the purple herons, coots, Kentish plovers, peewits, and some others.

Of the flamingoes themselves we secured several more lovely specimens; during two mornings devoted to shooting them, we bagged eight, six adults in rich rosy plumage, and two immature. Flamingoes are always shy and watchful birds, and their great height gives them a commanding view of threatening dangers: but there are degrees in intensity of wildness, and despite the unquestionable difficulty of flamingo-shooting, we would certainly not place these long-necked birds in the first rank among impracticable wild-fowl. Wild geese, for example, many of the duck-tribe, and nearly all the larger raptores far exceed them in incessant vigilance and downright astuteness. Flamingoes, however, will not, as a rule, permit of approach by the ordinary Spanish method of the stalking-horse, or _cabresto_: while the treacherous pony is still two gunshots away, the warning croak of the sentries is given, and at once the whole herd start to walk away, opening out their ranks as they move off. The method we found most effective to secure them was by partially surrounding a herd with a line of mounted men, who rode far out beyond them and then drove them over our two guns, each concealed behind his horse and crouching knee-deep in water. Of all the dirty work that wild-fowling in its many forms necessitates, this flamingo-driving takes the palm. It is mud-larking pure and simple, man, horse, and gun alike encased in a clinging argillaceous covering like the street-Arab amphibians below London Bridge.

It is a fine sight to see a big flight of flamingoes, say five hundred, coming well in to the gun--_entrando bien a la escopeta!_ The whole sky is streaked with columns of strange forms, and the still air resounds with the babel of discordant croaks and cries. How wondrously they marshal those long uniform files, bird behind bird without break or confusion, and how precisely do those thousand black wing-points beat in rapid regular unison! Flamingoes are not "hard" birds: their feathers being loose and open, and the extremely long necks a specially vulnerable part, they may be brought down from a considerable height even with small shot. One evening, while collecting specimens of small birds on the open marsh, the writer killed a pretty right-and-left at flamingoes with No 6. Happening to see them on the wing a long way off, I lay down flat among the low samphire-scrub and presently had them (five) right overhead. Both these birds fell stone-dead. On another occasion, many years before, at the Veta Lengua, our four barrels, each loaded with nine treble-nesting slugs, brought down three fine flamingoes from a herd rising at upwards of 180 measured paces. But having obtained specimens, we did not further molest these singular birds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A RIGHT-AND-LEFT AT FLAMINGOES.]

Flamingoes were not the sole attraction: the desolate region around abounded with wild life, furred and feathered, and many a pleasant bye-day was put in among the "vermin." One morning we rode out to some distant thickets where a neighbouring herdsman--half peasant, half poacher--complained that a family of lynxes were working havoc among his kids. Our friend, a man of square iron-knit frame, with the eyes and claws of an eagle, rode before us, no less than eleven wire-haired _podencos_ (hunting-dogs) made fast to his saddle-bow by cords of twisted esparto. The first thicket tried held a lynx, which, disturbed by the _podencos_, bolted at speed right between us and rolled over with a dose of "treble A" about her lugs. From this one small _mancha_ the dogs put out, besides the lynx, several partridge and rabbits, a Montagu's harrier, and a pair of mallards! This lynx was a female, a full-grown and handsome example of _Felis pardina_, much infested (as are most of the scrub-haunting animals) with ticks, especially about the head: but it was not much more than half the size of an enormous male which we subsequently found. Unluckily, half our pack were then wasting their energies on a big boar, which, after trotting close up to where the writer stood, turned back with a valedictory grunt and disappeared.

The rest of the pack had meanwhile driven the lynx to the outside of the thicket, where we had already viewed him and regarded his fate as sealed; when, with sudden fury, the big cat turned on his foes, and scattering the _podencos_ with some tremendous fore-arm blows, made good his escape to the fastnesses of the Algaida de la Pez.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SPANISH LYNX.]

Some years afterwards the writer killed a magnificent male lynx, one of the largest and most beautifully marked we have ever seen, at this _mancha_--probably the same beast.

These scrub-clad plains abounded with tall grey foxes (_Vulpes melanogaster_) and mongoose (_Herpestes widdringtoni_), with genets, badgers, and wild-cats, of all of which we shot specimens. Three wild-cats we bagged by moonlight, from screens placed to command an open glade where rabbits are wont to pursue nocturnal gambols. Waiting in ambush beneath the star-strewn heavens, in the silent brilliance of the southern night, no sound save the churring of nightjars, or the whistle of stone-curlew, broke the stillness: bats and small owls flicker in uncertain flight against the dark sky, and across the glade rabbits glide like phantoms: presently a larger shadow announces their deadly enemy, the _Gato montes_. Two of these wild-cats were males, large and powerful brutes, weighing 9 and 10 lbs. respectively, and tinged with warm chestnut colours beneath. The big lynx we could not weigh, being beyond the limit of the spring-balance. He probably reached near half a hundredweight. But we must return to our flamingoes.

During the month of April, as already mentioned, all efforts to discover their breeding-places proved futile. It was clearly too early in the season, and the writer now lost nearly a week through a smart attack of ague, brought on by constant splas.h.i.+ng about in comparatively cold water with a fierce sun always beating down on one's head. In May, however, we had better luck. Further to the eastward flamingoes had always been most numerous, and once or twice we observed signs, early in May, that looked like the first rude beginnings of architecture. We have already described the archipelago of islets that lay far towards the eastern sh.o.r.e, and on which we had found the rare gulls, and such a variety of waders and other aquatic birds breeding (p. 93), together with the immense numbers of flamingoes that lined the horizon. We must now return to those bird-islets, to the scene where we broke off at the end of Chapter VII on the afternoon of the 9th of May.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A TOILET IN THE WILDERNESS.]

As there stated, the immense aggregations of flamingoes in those middle marismas, surrounded the horizon in an almost unbroken line. But, on examining the different herds narrowly with the binocular, there was an obvious dissimilarity in the appearance of certain groups. One or two in particular seemed so much denser than the others: the narrow white line appeared at least three times as thick, and in the centre looked as if the birds were literally piled upon each other. Felipe suggested that these birds must be at their _pajerera_, or breeding-place, and after a long wet ride we found this was so. The water was very deep, the bottom clinging mud: at intervals, for a hundred yards or so, the laboured plunging of the mule was exchanged for an easier, gliding motion--he was swimming. The change was a welcome relief to man and beast: the sensation of sitting a swimming animal is not unpleasant, but it will give some idea of the labours undergone in these aquatic rides in the marismas in May, 1883, if we add that a fine mule, a powerful beast worth 60, succ.u.mbed to the effects of the fortnight's work.

On a nearer approach, the cause of the peculiar appearance of the herd from a distance became clearly discernible. Many of the birds were sitting down on a low mud-island. Some were standing upon it: and others again were standing in the water. Thus the different elevations of their bodies formed what had appeared a triple or quadruple line.

On reaching the spot we found a perfect ma.s.s of nests. The low, flat, mud plateau was crowded with them as thickly as its s.p.a.ce permitted.

These nests had little or no height above the flat surface of mud--some were raised an inch or two, a few might be five or six inches in height; but the majority were merely circular bulwarks of mud barely raised above the general level, and having the impression of the bird's legs distinctly marked upon them. The general aspect of the plateau was not unlike a large table covered with plates. In the centre was a deep hole full of muddy water, which, from the gouged appearance of its sides, appeared to be used as a reservoir for nest-making materials.

Scattered all round this main colony were numerous single nests, rising out of the water and evidently built up from the bottom. Here and there two or three of these were joined together--"semi-detached," so to speak: these separate nests stood six or eight inches above water-level, and as the depth was rather over a foot, the total height of the nests would be some two feet or thereabouts, and their width across the hollow top some fifteen inches. None of these nests as yet contained any eggs, and though I returned to the _pajarera_ on the latest day I was in its neighbourhood (May 11th) they still remained empty. On both occasions many hundreds of flamingoes were sitting on the nests, and on the 11th we had a good view of them at close quarters. Linked arm-in-arm with Felipe, and crouching low on the water to look as little human as possible, we approached within some seventy yards before their sentries showed signs of alarm: and at that distance, with the gla.s.s, observed the sitting birds as distinctly as one need wish. The long red legs doubled under their bodies, the knees projecting as far as, or beyond the tail, and their graceful necks neatly curled away among their back-feathers like a sitting swan, with the heads resting on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s--all these points were unmistakable. Indeed, as regards the disposition of their legs, it is hardly necessary to point out that in the great majority of cases (the nests being hardly raised above the level of the mud) no other position was possible--to sit _astride_ on a _flat_ surface is out of the question.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLAMINGOES AND NESTS.]

Still none of the crowded nests contained a single egg. How strange it is that the flamingo, a bird which never seems happy unless half-way up to his knees in water, should so long delay the period of incubation: for, long before eggs could be laid and hatched in these nests and the young reared, the full summer-heats of June and July would have set in, the water would have entirely disappeared, and the flamingoes would be left stranded in the midst of a scorching desert of dry, sun-baked mud.

Being unable myself to return to the marisma, I sent Felipe back there on the 26th of May, when he obtained eggs--long, white and chalky, some specimens extremely rough. Two is the number laid in each nest. In 1872 the writer obtained eggs taken on May 24th, which is therefore, probably, about the average date of laying. Owing to the late period at which incubation takes place, we have not had an opportunity of examining the young flamingoes when newly-hatched, or of endeavouring to solve the biological problems which appear to cl.u.s.ter round their adolescent anatomy. In June and July, 1872, the writer spent some time in the marisma, but unfortunately was not aware, at that time, of the interest attaching to these points.

According to native accounts, very few young flamingoes are ever reared in Spain. Though in wet seasons eggs are laid in thousands (they are sold by boatloads in the neighbouring villages), yet few, if any, of the young Spanish flamingoes reach maturity--possibly by reason of their lateness in nesting, and the rapid changes in the state of the water in the marisma.

In the spring of 1891, after an exceptionally severe winter in Spain, and with comparatively little water in the marisma, flamingoes were remarkably scarce, and we believe that none bred in Andalucia that year.

Since the author's description of the nesting habits of the flamingo first appeared in the _Ibis_ (January, 1884), its accuracy has been corroborated by independent observations made on the West Indian island of Abaco by His Excellency (now Sir) H. H. Blake, when Governor of the Bahamas. The value of the corroboration is enhanced by the fact that the above-named gentleman was unaware at the time he wrote that the long-vexed question had already, three years previously, been solved: and his graphic description in the _Nineteenth Century_ for December, 1887, is, as regards facts, almost identical with the present writer's account of a similar scene narrated in the _Ibis_ for January, 1884.

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