482 ORNITHOLOGICAL SKETCHES 
in the Sierra de Ronda, nor of course among the flat sur- 
roundings of Seville, or on the banks of the Guadalquivir. 
As I visited no part of Portugal except the immediate 
neighbourhood of the capital, | can say nothing about its 
occurrence in that country from my own observation ; while 
in the large Royal Museum at Lisbon—where the collections, 
in pleasing contrast to all those of Spain, are quite up to the 
every stuffed Bearded Vulture that 
I saw came from the latter country. Prof. Barboza du Bocage, 
mark of modern science 
the keeper of the museum, who is so well known to all orni- 
thologists, also told me that it is one of the greatest rarities 
in Portugal, having only been occasionally seen in the moun- 
tainous parts of the country near the Spanish frontier, while 
its nest has never been found. 
In the range of the Picos de Huropa, in the north of 
Spain, I discovered an abandoned nest situated on a lofty 
precipice that rose from a high desolate mountain valley 
clothed with luxuriant beech woods, and inhabited by bears 
and izards (Spanish chamois). According to the informa- 
tion that I received from the herdsmen, this nest had been 
occupied the year before by a pair of Bearded Vultures; and 
from what these men said I could easily see that they knew 
how to distinguish this species from the other raptorial birds. 
I inspected the nest, which was placed in a hole just like the 
one that I had found in the Sierra Nevada. 
In the same mountains above Cobadonga, and not far from 
the abandoned nest, I one morning saw a very dark-coloured 
young bird not more than a year and a half old. It was with 
a large flock of vultures that were circling round the last 
remnants of a dead cow; but it always kept rather higher up 
than the Griffon Vultures, and when I approached it was the 
first to go. On my proceeding to lay out a sheep as a bait 
it appeared again with many of the other birds, circled con- 
stantly round the carcass at a considerable height, and looked 
