Note, first, that these do not arrive in Spain (having come 6000 or 8000 miles but being still 2000 or 3000 miles short of their final destination) until long after all other birds--including several congeneric and closely related species--have already laid their eggs and many hatched their young. Also, secondly, that some of them begin to assume their spring breeding-plumage under autumnal conditions _before_ quitting Australia in April--that is, the Australian autumn--and while yet some 10,000 miles distant from the points at which that breeding-dress is designed to be worn. To the four named might properly be added other two species--the sanderling and the little stint. Our only reason for confining our remarks to the original quartette is that, in Spain, the transit of the other two is less pronounced and noticeable. Last spring (1910), dry as the marismas were, we had these globe-spanners in thousands. They were extremely wild, and it was only by elaborate "drives" that we secured a few specimens.[68] We also observed in mid-May hundreds of _black_-tailed godwits, a species which usually disappears from southern Spain at end of March and which we have found nesting in Jutland _before_ the above date, viz. the first week in May. [Illustration: GREY PLOVERS In summer plumage, on route for Siberia--Marisma, May 12.] Whimbrels had been extremely abundant early in May, together with a few greenshanks, ring-dotterel, and green sandpiper. On May 13 we observed several of the Mediterranean black-headed gull (_Larus melanocephalus_) on Santolalla. [NOTE.--Referring to the last sentence, our companion, Commander H. Lynes, R. N., writes:--"All the gulls I saw on Santolalla I am positive were _L. ridibundus_, and I looked most carefully. The wing-pattern of _melanocephalus_ is very distinct. With the latter I became quite familiar in the Mediterranean in winter, and also saw them in late summer at Smyrna." We, nevertheless, leave our own record as above, being confident that such gulls as happened to come within our own view were _exclusively_ of the southern species, with its darker and deeper hood. But the occurrence of our British Black-headed Gull so far south in mid-May is also remarkable. That species, though abundant all winter, has disappeared, as a rule, by the end of March. Our own last note of observing it during the spring in question was on April 1. We may add a further note of having observed _both_ species (swimming alongside) on Guadalquivir, March 12, 1909. The distinction, alike in the depth and darker shade of the "hood" in _L. melanocephalus_, was unmistakable, even to naked eye.]