Lord Lilford on the Ornithology of Spain. 385 



bird-life was to be heard. My friend Don Manuel Sanchez, of 

 Calle de Alcala, brought me great numbers of the eggs of the 

 Blue Magpie, with a few other species, and would not hear of 

 any remuneration, as I had made him a present of an English 

 work on ornithology^ which he could not read, but the plates of 

 which gave him extreme delight. A Spanish White, Bewick, 

 or Yarrell still se fait desirer. There is no work whatever on 

 general Spanish zoology, though a few lists of the birds and 

 insects of some provinces, published in the Proceedings of the 

 Royal Academy of Madrid, induce us to hope for better things ; 

 yet [ much fear that any general attention to natural history in 

 Spain will long remain a thing of manana. 



On June 2ud we left Madrid for San Ildefonso, better known 

 perhaps as La Grauja, from the palace which is situated in the 

 village. Taking the northern line of railway as far as Villalba, 

 we thence proceeded by diligence over the Guadarrama, arriving 

 at our destination early in the afternoon. The road over the 

 Sierra is very fine, the southern side being very stern and 

 barren ; on crossing the frontier of Old Castile, at the summit 

 of the pass, we entered a magnificent pine- forest, through which 

 we rapidly descended till we emerged on level ground near 

 Valsain, a village about two miles from San Ildefonso, at the 

 foot of the mountains, the lower slopes of which are clothed 

 with dense oak-copse; and below them again the plains of Old 

 Castile stretch away unbroken as far away as the eye can reach 

 in the direction of Valladolid. San Ildefonso is beautifully 

 situated immediately at the foot of the Sierra, surrounded by 

 shady copses, and watered by the rapid Eresma, whilst the snov/y 

 peak of La Penalara, eight thousand feet high, towers in the 

 background, appearing so close in this fine air that one is led 

 to imagine that two or three hours would bring one to it, al- 

 though the ascent is in fact a good long day's hardish work. 

 The only birds I noticed on the joui'uey w^ere, besides the in- 

 evitable Woodchats, Larks, and Bee-eaters, a few Blue Magpies, 

 one or two Greater Spotted Woodpeckers {Picus major), and 

 a Goshawk, which dashed across the road close to us. We 

 found no inn open at San Ildefonso, as the Court was still 

 absent ; but we obtained comfortable lodgings in a private house 



