The Story of the Jamb 427 
I will not say all | think of the episode beyond that | could 
wish my worst enemy no better diversion than to be in the pre- 
dicament I was, with no trusty naval officer to get him out of it 
The person who invented the expression ‘‘ between the devil and 
the deep sea” had obviously never been over a bad cliff on a rope 
that jambed. 
From the terrace | made my way down to the mules and found 
the avrzero had lit a huge fire of lentiscus bushes where I was very 
glad to dry my wet clothes and get into my boots. Half an hour 
later I was joined by the cliff-party and had to break to them the 
doleful news of my utter discomfiture. 
Since everything pointed to the Bearded Vulture having the 
intention to lay in this nest before many days, I decided to 
revisit it about a fortnight later, by which time I reckoned that 
the eggs would surely be laid. I came to this conclusion against 
all my knowledge and experience of the nesting of the Bearded 
Vulture since it was already two if not three months after their 
usual time for laying. But | was tempted to set aside all previous 
records by the fact that the birds were without doubt building a 
new nest and that probably their first laying had been destroyed by 
some accident or had been taken from some other site. I had 
further an excellent precedent in the case of an Osprey’s nest in 
which fresh eggs were laid in the month of May, at least two 
months after the usual time and probably for the same reason, 
So it came about that 8 April found me once more at the 
head of a forlorn hope pushing through the mountains for the 
Vulture’s cliff. This time we carried with us a coil of 300 ft. of 
2-in. rope, for I had had enough of joining ropes. As I was 
determined to make absolutely certain this time before I embarked 
on the laborious task of escalading the cliff, on our arrival opposite 
to it, I sent the mules away and lay up with my telescope to watch 
the old birds. Soon, one and then the other came into view flying 
