Yes, may progress come, yet leave unchanged the innate courtesy, the dignity and independence of rural Spain--unspoilt her sierras and glorious heaths aromatic of myrtle and mimosa, alternating with natural woods of ilex and cork-oak--self-sown and park-like, carpeted between in spring-time with wondrous wealth of wild flowers. There is nothing incongruous in such aspiration. Incongruity rather comes in with misappreciation of the fitness of things, as when a coal-mine is planked down in the midst of sylvan beauties, to save some hypothetic penny-a-ton (as per Prospectus); where pellucid streams are polluted with chemical filth and vegetation blasted by noisome fumes; or where God's fairest landscapes are ruined by forests of hideous smoke-stacks.
If vandalisms such as these be progress then we prefer Spain as she is.
After all, it is less with the human element that this book is concerned than with the wild Fauna of Spain; a brief introductory notice thereof cannot, therefore, be omitted.
[Illustration: BONELLI'S EAGLE (_Aquila bonellii_)
As head of the list must stand the Spanish Ibex (_Capra hispánica_), a game-animal of quite first rank, peculiar to the Iberian Peninsula, and whose nearest relative--the Bharal (_Capra cylindricornis_)--lives 2500 miles away in the far Caucasus. In Spain the ibex inhabits six great mountain-ranges, each covering a vast area but all widely separated. After a crisis that five years ago threatened extermination, this grand species is now happily increasing under a measure of protection and the ægis of King Alfonso. Next--a notable neighbour of the ibex (and practically extinct in central Europe)--we place the lone and lordly Lammergeyer. A memorable spectacle it is to watch the huge _Gypaëtus_ sweeping through space o'er glens and corries of the sierra in striking similitude to some weird flying dragon of Miocene age--a vision of blood-red irides set on a cruel head with bristly black beard, of hoary grey plumage and golden breast. Watch him for half an hour--for half a day--yet never will you discern a sign of force exerted by those 3-yard pinions. With slightly reflexed wings he sinks 1000 feet; then, shifting course, rises 2000, 3000 feet till lost to sight over some appalling skyline. You have seen the long cuneate tail deflected ever so slightly--more gently than a well-handled helm--but the wide lavender wings remain rigid, not an effort that indicates force have you descried. Yet the power (so defined as "horse-power") required to raise a deadweight of 20 lbs. through such altitudes can be calculated by engineers to a nicety--how is it exerted? That the power is there is conspicuous enough, and at least it serves to explain fabled traditions of giant lammergeyers hurling ibex-hunter from perilous hand-hold on the crag, to feast on the remains below; or, in idler moment, bearing off untended babes to their eyries--alas! that the duty of nature-students involves dissipating all such romance.