In subsequent _tiradas_ I have never enjoyed quite so much luck, although never firing less than 400 to 500 cartridges. In spite of the difficulty of recovering dead game, I have always on these occasions gathered from one hundred upwards--the precise numbers I have not recorded. Some of the _puestos_ have a very small extent of open water around them, and in these a greater proportion of the game is necessarily lost. For example, in a single quite small clump of reeds I remember marking not less than thirty ducks fall dead, yet of these I recovered not one. The sharp-edged leaves of the sedge (_masiega_) cut like a knife, and the boatman who entered the reeds to collect the game returned a few minutes later without a bird, but with hands, arms, and legs bleeding from innumerable cuts and scratches, which obliged him to desist from further search. This is but one example of the difficulty of recovering fallen game.
As examples of the totals secured individually in a day may be quoted the following. At the first shooting in 1908 the Duke of Arión gathered 251 ducks, and at the second shoot, 245, the Duke of Prim, 197. The record bag was made some ten or twelve years ago by a Valencian sportsman, Don Juan Cistel, who brought in no less than 393 ducks in one day! His late Majesty, King Alfonso XII., comes second with 381 ducks shot in three hours and a half. On his second visit, on hearing that he had secured his century, His Majesty stopped shooting, being more interested to watch the fowl passing overhead. His total was 127. King Alfonso XIII. had an unlucky day here--rain and storm--hence he only totalled ninety odd. Many years ago, our late friend, Santiago Udaëta, was credited with 270 ducks to his own gun in one day.
These bags are truly enormous, for, big as it is, Daimiel is not a patch in size as compared with our own marismas of the Guadalquivir. There is here, on the other hand, abundant cover to conceal the guns, which is not the case with us.
[Illustration: RED-CRESTED POCHARD--AN IMPRESSION AT DAIMIEL]
It was at Daimiel that we first made acquaintance with the red-crested pochard--a handsome and truly striking species, smart in build, colour, action, and every attribute. A bushy red head outstretched on a very long neck contrasts with the jet-black breast, while the white "speculum" on the wings shows up conspicuous as a transparency, especially when a band passes over-head in the azure vault, or splashes down on reed-girt shallow--one actually seems to see through the gauzy texture of their quills. These ducks breed in numbers at Daimiel, as do also mallards, garganey, and ferruginous ducks, together with stilts, grebes, and herons of all denominations. Greatly do we regret that our experience at Daimiel does not include the spring-season with all its unknown ornithological possibilities. An unfortunate accident prevented our spending a week or two at Daimiel in May of the present year.