[Illustration: TWO SPANISH IBEX SHOT IN SIERRA DE GRÉDOS, JULY, 1910.
TWO SPANISH IBEX SHOT IN SIERRA DE GRÉDOS, JULY, 1910.]
The beaters reported having seen several ibex during this drive, two small rams, females, and kids--thirteen in all. We devoted a couple more days to this section of the sierra, but both proved unsuccessful so far as regards the one grand ibex-ram which we had seen. Here, on the Riscos del Fraile, and later on at Villarejo, we each spared small beasts; but at last were fain to be content with a three-year-old goat, whose head adorns our walls.
Before daylight we were aroused by the breaking-up of camp, and by seven o'clock had taken a downward course from that lofty eyrie which we had occupied for ten days. It was a lovely ride with bright sunlight lighting up every detail of the mountain scenery, while every mile brought evidence of the lowering altitude--first, in green herbage, then in brushwood and stunted trees, till at mid-day we reached the region of pines in the cool valley of the river Tormes. Here we halted, and while lunch was being prepared, enjoyed a swim in those crystal torrents. That afternoon was devoted to trout, but with meagre results. The stream gleamed like polished steel, everything that moved in the waters could be seen, and doubtless its denizens enjoyed a similar advantage as regards things in the other element. At any rate, none save the smaller trout would look at a fly; so we continued our journey, following the river-side in the direction of the mountains of Villarejo.
Dionýsio and Caraballo had gone to a hamlet lower down for bread and wine. There was no bread, and having to wait till it was baked, delayed the march. Meanwhile, we wandered on through pine-woods with the beautiful stream fretting and foaming, and collecting a few bird-specimens, though none of much interest. We did, however, come across two gigantic nests of the black vulture, flat platforms of sticks, each superimposed on the summit of a lofty pine. Even in these uplands the black vulture nests in March, when the whole land is yet enveloped in snow, and while frequent snowstorms sweep down the valleys. So closely does the parent vulture incubate, that she allows herself to be completely buried on her nest beneath the drifting snow. On these hanging steeps the eyries are overlooked from above, yet not a vestige of the sitting vulture can be seen until she is disturbed by a blow from an axe on the trunk, or by a shot fired--then off she goes, dislodging a cloud of snow from her three-yard wings as she launches into space.