Bird-life in the Spanish marisma--in spring no less than in winter--presents spectacles of such abounding variety as can nowhere in Europe be surpassed. In the Arctic are vaster aggregations, but these, comprising, say, only half-a-dozen species, are less attractive. It is the infinite kaleidoscopic succession of graceful and dissimilar forms that hour by hour flash on one's sight--in a word, it is variety that lends abiding charm to our Spanish bird-world. [Illustration: GREY PLOVER (MAY)] These scenes have already been described--we have ourselves described them in detail, and do not propose to recapitulate, alluring though the subject be. Here we purpose depicting bird-life under undescribed conditions--in a spring when, by reason of exceptional drought, the myriad marsh-dwellers find themselves entirely at fault. Winging their seasonal way from Africa, to seek the seclusion of reed-girt pools and their accustomed league-long swamps and shallows, they found instead a calcined plain, no drop of water remaining, plant-life either prematurely parched or pulverised beneath a fiery sun. Watching the arrival of the advance-guard in early spring, one wondered what the bewildered hosts would do next, how they would face this fresh freak of nature. The marismas, it should be explained, normally dry every summer, however wet the previous winter may have been. Though the great _lucios_ stood five feet deep in February, yet the deepest will be stone-dry by midsummer or, at latest, by St. Jago (July 24). Cattle and the wild-game can then only drink at the narrowed pools where permanent water, however exiguous, oozes forth--or the cattle from wells. In normal years, however, the marsh-birds have already reared their broods before these dates. But in years of drought--what resource have they, where can they find a substitute for their sun-destroyed and desolate _incunabula_? Many (the waders in particular) instinctively prognosticate a drought; few, comparatively, either come or remain--those that come pass on. Even such birds as breed on permanent deep-water lakes (such, for example, as the smaller herons, egrets, and ibises) perceive in advance that, although they may have water assured, there will neither be sufficient covert, later on, to conceal their nurseries nor food for the rearing of their young. The erewhiles teeming heronries are abandoned.