From the turrets of our shooting-lodge one's eye surveyed--no longer an inland sea, but a monotone of sun-baked mud; inspection through binoculars revealed the fact that this whole space was dotted with troops of ... well, a friend who was with us thought they were sheep; but which, in fact, were bands of greylag geese. The fluctuations of Spanish seasons--varying from Noachian deluge to Saharan drought--necessarily react upon the habits of wildfowl. These changes are one of the charms of the country; at any rate, they "stretch out" the fowler to devise some new thing. Those battalions of greylags posted out there on a vantage-ground where a mouse might be a prominent object at 100 yards, how can they be reduced to possession? Our friend aforesaid replies that the undertaking appears humanly impossible. We have, nevertheless, elaborated a system of driving, by which in dry years the greylag geese may be obtained with some degree of certainty. This morning (the last of January) we rode forth, four guns and four keepers, across that plain. Upon approaching the pack of geese selected, one keeper rides to a position rather above the "half-wind" line, and there halts as a "stop." The remaining seven ride on till, at a silent signal, No. 1 gun, without checking his horse, passes the bridle forward and rolls out of the saddle with gun and gear, lying at once flat as a flounder on the bare dry mud. At intervals of eighty yards each successive gun does the same, the four being now extended in a half-moon that commands nearly a quarter-mile of space. The three keepers (leading the other horses) continue riding forward in circular course till a second "stop" is placed in the right flank corresponding with the one already posted on the left. The last pair now complete the circuit by riding round to windward of the game, separating by 200 yards as that position is attained. (See diagram.) [Illustration]