ABSTRACT
One of the more fascinating examples of Spain's inexhaustible cultural diversity and the persistence of its folkways is the large scale capture and consumption of pajaritos, or small wild birds. In Andaluci'a the species principally involved is the common English starling or estornino, come south from Central Europe to spend the winter in a milder climate and to feed on ripe olives and the fruits and berries of the monte bajo of the Iberian wildlands. If a mass slaughter of wild things tends to rouse people's indignation, it is tempered by the realization that the little birds provide a cheap and needed protein food. In the cold logic of the Spanish countryman the starling is deserving of no more sympathy than a White Leghorn or an acorn-fattened pig. The average bird weighs some three and one-fourth ounces as caught, reaching to three-and-a-half ounces at the end of the season.
