[12] This, the southernmost form of the green woodpecker, has much the most ringing voice. The closely allied northern form, _G. canus_, that one hears constantly in Norway, utters but a sharp monosyllabic note. A second curious fact may here be mentioned: that the great grey shrike, just named, _Lanius meridionalis_, is resident in Spain throughout the year, while the closely allied and almost identical _L. excubitor_ breeds exclusively in the far north (chiefly within the Arctic) and only descends to England in winter. Besides the harsh note mentioned above, the southern shrike, in spring, utters a piping whistle not unlike a golden plover. [13] This is only the second instance in thirty or forty years of a wounded or "bayed" stag killing a dog. In the Culata del Faro, we remember, many years ago, a stag shot through the lungs, and which was brought to bay close behind the writer's post, tossing a _podenco_ clean over its head, and so injuring it that the dog had to be destroyed at once. [14] The initials are those of our late friend Colonel Brymer of Ilsington, Dorset, formerly M.P. for that county, and who was a frequent visitor to Spain, where, alas! his death occurred while we write this chapter (May 1909). A unique exploit of the Colonel's during his last shooting-trip may fitly be recorded. On February 5, 1909, at the Culata del Faginado, four big stags broke in a clump past his post on a pine-crowned ridge in the forest. Two he dropped right and left; then reloading one barrel, killed a third ere the survivors had vanished from sight. These three stags carried thirty-four points, the best head taping 30-1/2 inches by 27 inches in width, and 4-1/2 inches basal circumference. [15] Not a single accident, great or small, has occurred during the authors' long tenure of the Coto Doñana. [16] See _On Safari_, by Abel Chapman, pp. 216-17. The Spanish term _Ronda_ may roughly be translated as "rounding-up." [17] At the date in question (end of November) it is, of course, possible that this immigration was proceeding, not from the north, but from the south. That is, that these were fowl which, on their first arrival in Spain in September and October, had found the _marisma_ untenable from lack of water, and had in consequence passed on into Africa, whence they were now returning, on the changed weather. But be that as it may, the route above indicated is that invariably followed by the north-bred wildfowl on their first arrival in Spain. [18] This was in earlier days. Later on we developed a flotilla of flat-bottomed canoes expressly adapted to this service. A photo of one of these is annexed. [19] See _Instructions to Young Sportsmen_, by P. Hawker, second edition (1816), pp. 229, 230. [20] In the big and deep lucios no plant-life exists, nor could surface-feeding ducks reach down to it even if subaquatic herbage of any kind did grow there.