FROM SPAIN. 465 
of the year, for during spring, when it is breeding, it is chiefly 
confined to the rocky mountains, and does not wander so far 
from its nest. At another time one could certainly have 
collected a large number of Griffon Vultures at a carcass 
anywhere else, even in the wooded Pardo ; but at the season 
that I rambled through these regions I was compelled to visit 
the breeding-places near the high mountains, in order to see 
them at a great banquet. 
Behind the famous palace of the Escorial there rises a high 
ridge strewn with great masses of stone. It is a spur of the 
true Sierra Guadarrama, and the vultures cross it every 
morning as they come from the mountains to look for plunder 
in the plain between the Escorial and Madrid. I therefore 
thought it would be a good plan to expose a carcass on this 
widely visible height, and, concealing myself in a hut made 
of stones, I awaited the interesting spectacle. After a little 
while a few Egyptian Vultures appeared, then came some 
Black Kites and Ravens, and shortly afterwards a Cinereous 
Vulture. Hardly had these birds arrived when a troop of 
Griffon Vultures descended with heavy beats of their wings. 
The shots fired frightened them away; but they were quickly 
succeeded by fresh arrivals, for vultures follow each other, 
and as soon as one settles at a carcass others keep plunging 
down, generally coming from the same direction as the first. 
It was interesting to see how clumsily these great birds 
hopped round the carrion, tugged at the entrails, and trailing 
great pieces after them, flapped off to the nearest rocks, where 
they quarrelled and fought. There were one or two Cinereous 
among the ten to twenty Griffon Vultures; but the former 
went about with greater vigour and assurance, and violently 
thrusting themselves between their yellow-plumaged relatives, 
always hopped straight up to the carcass, tore out huge pieces 
of flesh and flapped away with them. When scared by too 
much shooting, the vultures settled on the stones and rocky 
2H 
