Spain boasts several distinct species peculiar to her limits. Among such (besides the ibex) are that curious amphibian, the Pyrenean musk-rat (_Myogale pyrenaica_), not again to be met with nearer than the eastern confines of Europe. Birds afford an even more striking instance. The Spanish azure-winged magpie (_Cyanopica cooki_) abounds in Castile, Estremadura, and the Sierra Moréna, but its like is seen nowhere else on earth till you reach China and Japan! CHAPTER III THE COTO DOÑANA: OUR HISTORIC HUNTING-GROUND A Foreword by SIR MAURICE DE BUNSEN, G.C.M.G., British Ambassador at Madrid. Among my recollections of Spain none will be more vivid and delightful than those of my visits to the Coto Doñana. From beginning to end, climate, scenery, sport, and hospitable entertainment combine, in that happy region, to make the hours all too short for the joys they bring. Equipped with Paradox-gun or rifle, and some variety of ammunition, to suit the shifting requirements of deer and boar, lynx, partridge, wild-geese and ducks, snipe, rabbit and hare, nay, perhaps a chance shot at flamingo, vulture, or eagle, the favoured visitor steps from the Bonanza pier into the broad wherry waiting to carry him across the Guadalquivir, a few miles only from its outflow into the Atlantic. In its hold the first of many enticing _bocadillos_ is spread before him. Table utensils are superfluous luxuries, but, armed with hunting blade and a formidable appetite, he plays havoc with the red mullet, _tortilla_, and _carne de membrillo_, washed down with a tumbler of sherry which has ripened through many a year in a not far distant _bodega_. In half an hour he is in the saddle. Distances and sandy soil prohibit much walking in the Coto Doñana. [Illustration: SAND WASTE IN COTO DOÑANA.] [Illustration: LANDSCAPE IN COTO DOÑANA, WITH MARISMA IN BACKGROUND. FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY H.R.H. PHILIPPE, DUKE OF ORLEANS.] [Illustration: SPANISH IMPERIAL EAGLE]