Within an easy half-day's ride from X. lie the cliffs of Chipipi, rising in crenellated tiers from the winding river at their base. It is a lovely May morning. Doves in dozens dash away as we ride through groves of white poplars, and the soft air is filled with their murmurous chorus; the bush-clad banks are vocal with the song of orioles and nightingales, cuckoos, and a score of warblers--Cetti's and orphean, Sardinian, polyglotta, Bonelli's. The handsome rufous warbler, though not much of a songster, is everywhere conspicuous, flirting a boldly-barred, fan-shaped tail that catches one's eye. There are woodchats, serins, hoopoes; azure-blue rollers squawk, and brilliant bee-eaters poise and chatter overhead--their nest-burrows perforate the river-bank like a sand-martins' colony. On willow-clad eyots nest lesser ring-dotterels and otters bask; while in the shaded depths beneath the fringing osiers lurk barbel intent to dash at belated grasshopper or cricket. [Illustration: SAVI'S WARBLER (_Sylcia savii_) A spring-migrant, common but very local. Has eggs by mid-April.] In a thick lentiscos is the nest of a great grey shrike, and while we watch, its owner flies up carrying a lizard in her beak. Half an hour later we see a second shrike, with falcon-like dash, capture another lizard basking in a sunny cranny among the rocks--no mean performance that. There are snakes here also; one we killed, a coluber, on March 31, was 5-1/2 feet long and contained two rabbits swallowed whole and head first--one partly digested. Another snake, quite small, struck us as being something new; him we bottled in spirit and despatched to the British Museum. Presently came the reply, thanking us for a "Lizard, _Blanus cinereus_." Lizard? Well, we learnt a lesson. There are limbless lizards, and this was one--the subterranean amphisbaena; our British blindworm (_Anguis fragilis_) is another, and that also we did not know before. There are curious reptiles here in Spain--the chameleon, for example. The lobe-footed gecko, _Salamanquésa_ in Spanish, haunts sunny rocks where insects abound. But he carries war into the enemy's camp, invading (not singly, but in force) the wild-bees' nests. A Spanish bee-keeper gravely assured us that the cold-blooded gecko does this thing expressly to enjoy the sensation of being stung in twenty places at once! Here in a shady glade lie strewn broadcast the wings of butterflies--examine very closely the bush above, and presently an iris-less eye, expressionless as a grey pearl, will meet your own. That is a praying mantis (or _Santa Teresa_ in Spanish), a practical insect but no aesthete, since he devours the ugly body and casts aside the beauteous wings!--see his portrait at p. 87. Among butterflies we counted here the scarce swallowtail, _Thaïs polyxena_ (hatching out on April 3), _Vanessa polychloros_, a big fritillary with blood-red under-surface to its fore-wings (_Argynnis maia_, Cramer),