Alike in its game-denizens with other physical features, Cantabria is differentiated from the rest of Spain, approximating rather to a north-European similitude. Thus the capercaillie is spread along the whole Biscayan range though nowhere numerous, and in appearance less so than in fact, owing to the density of these mountain-forests.
During our long but fruitless rambles after bear we raised but four; that, however, was in spring when these birds are apt to lie close.
In the Pyrenees (where the capercaillie is known as _Gallo de Bosque_) a certain number are shot every winter along with roebuck and pig in mountain-drives (_monterías_); but in the Asturias the pursuit of the _Gallo de Monte_ is effected (as in Austria and northern Europe) during its courting-season in May. The system is well known. The opportunity occurs at dusk and dawn, the stalker advancing while the lovelorn male sings a frenzied epithalamium, halting instantly when the bird becomes silent.
Ptarmigan are found in the Pyrenees, but seem to extend no farther west than the Province of Navarre, which area also coincides roughly with the southern distribution of the hazel-grouse (_Tetrao bonasia_) though we had some suspicion (not since confirmed) that the latter may extend into Asturias.
Our common grey partridge, unknown in S. Spain, occurs all along the Cantabrian highlands up to, but not beyond, the Cordillera de León. Here it descends to the foothills in winter, but is never found on the plains.
A bird peculiar to this region, though not game, deserves remark, the great black woodpecker, a subarctic species which we have observed in the Picos de Europa.
Nearly all the Spanish rivers when they leave the sierras and dawdle through the plains degenerate into sluggish mud-charged streams; but most of them are well stocked with barbel, which may be caught by methods similar to those in vogue on the Thames, _i.e._ by float-fishing or ledgering with fine but strong tackle, as the first rush of a barbel is worthy of a trout. These fish average about one pound in weight, but in favourable spots, such as mill-tails, run up to 10 lbs. and upwards.
The Spanish barbel has developed one trait in advance of its English cousins, for it will rise to a fly, or at least to a grasshopper. Owing to the abundance of these insects and of crickets along the river-banks in summer, the barbel have acquired a taste for such delicacies, and a hot June afternoon in Andalucia may be worse spent than in "dapping" beneath the trees that fringe the banks of Guadalete and similar rivers.