THROUGH WILD EUROPE 197 



and herdsmen in Spain, and other mountainous 

 countries, has resulted in the destruction of great 

 numbers of these and other raptorial birds, and 

 they are in consequence of extreme rarity. A few 

 pairs may still perhaps linger in the most inaccessible 

 of the Spanish sierras, and these, with a pair or two 

 in the Carpathians, and in Bosnia and Greece, are 

 now all that remain in Europe. 



My first intention was to visit a certain range in 

 the Carpathians where I had heard of its recent 

 existence, but at the last moment news of the ex- 

 ceptional depth of snow, which rendered the locality 

 absolutely inaccessible, made an alteration of plans 

 necessary. I went therefore instead, first of all to 

 Corfu, to discover, if possible, the whereabouts of a 

 nest from which a young bird had been taken in the 

 previous year, and which was now a captive at a 

 small wine shop in that island. It was thought pro- 

 bable that it had been procured from the mountains on 

 the mainland opposite, either in Albania or Greece. 



The journey began badly. There was much snow 

 everywhere, and it was certainly cold, but I think 

 on the whole that travelling outside on the roof 

 of the carriage would have been preferable to my 

 experience inside. The German idea of comfort 

 when travelling apparently is to shut carefully all the 

 windows and ventilators, to turn the steam-heating 

 apparatus full on, and to stew in their own juice. 



