The Oologists' Record, September i, 1921. 55 



the Hotel Gardens and a pair of Lesser Kestrels about the cliff. 

 They chased ol^ a Raven which at one time winged its way near 

 them. A Blue Rock Thrush, Monticola cyaneus, was also flying 

 about the top of the cliff and singing on the parapet. 



April 14th was our first day at Grazalcma and, leaving McNeile 

 to work the lower valleys, I started up the mountain pass with 

 a guide. We soon found a small griffonry consisting of five or 

 six pairs, only just through the pass, and got one egg, which proved 

 to be quite fresh, from a ledge, although all the other nests con- 

 tained half-grown young birds. Two pairs of Egyptian Vultures, 

 Neophron percnopterns percnopterus, also had nests in slight cavities 

 here. One proved inaccessible ev^en to the guide, a good climber, 

 but we got to the other nest in a small V-shaped fissure where 

 the floor was covered with bits of stick, excrement, bones, &c., 

 with a slight hollow in the middle lined with a few old scraps of 

 rag and some hair. It contained a handsome pair of eggs. One 

 Lammergeier was flying slowly along the face of the cliff near 

 here. I found the high cliff frequented by the Black Redstart 

 and the Great Titmouse, well above the tree level. 



Next morning the young Spaniard who got me a set of Egyptian 

 Vulture's eggs beyond Benamahoma last year brought me in 

 another set of two just taken from the same nest. They are remark- 

 able as being alike in size, shape, and colouring, yet marked at the 

 reverse ends to those of last year. He also brought in a pair of 

 eggs of the Eagle Owl, Bubo bubo hispanus, taken a fortnight before 

 from a nest in a cliff. On the i6th we set out on horseback to 

 Hermita de la Gigante with Francisco Vasquez. It was a grand 

 narrow gorge with great cliffs each side, where a few Griffons and 

 many Egyptian Vultures bred. We picked up a lad at the farm 

 at the head of the gorge as guide and endeavoured to get round 

 the right-hand cliff to where the Egyptian Vultures bred. Very 

 soon, however, we came to a nasty place, and as Egyptian Vultmes 

 were not exciting enough to tempt us to be foolhardy, we returned 

 the way we had come, the only nest found being that of a Griffon 

 Vulture with a full-grown youngster in it. 



Next day we went across the mountain pass to Benamahoma 

 with horses and a guide. We saw a Golden Eagle, Aqnila chrysafos 

 occidentalis, flying round the peak of San Cristobal, but the guide 

 did not know where the nest was. In the woods along the pass 

 we observed several Spanish Jays, Garruliis glandarius, subsp. ? 



A 3 



