SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I93O 5 1 



and larger limbs are cut off 20 to 30 feet from the ground, leaving the 

 huge trunks grotesquely gnarled and twisted to stand in irrregular 

 array, a hobgoblin woodland that often appears dark and gloomy with 

 little animal life in evidence. When new shoots grow from the pol- 

 larded trunks these are cut at intervals of a few years until with the 

 passing of time decay creeps in through these repeated wounds, the 

 tree trunk gives up the uneven battle with man, and is finally cut down 

 and made into fire wood. Extensive forests are distant from the 

 towns and in the better settled regions are of little area. 



Travel along the numerous footpaths at Fierros ordinarily was 

 not difficult, except that one was continually climbing or descending, 

 but the intervening slopes were steep and high so that collecting speci- 

 mens was attended with considerable labor. The higher slopes had 

 huge exposures of massive rock while far beyond were peaks covered 

 with snow. Trees and bushes along the rushing streams of the lower 

 valleys were half in leaf but a thousand feet above on exposed slopes 

 the winds blew chill and buds were barely opening. 



Small birds were common, particularly in the shrubbery along the 

 lower footpaths. The wren, a counterpart of our winter wren, sang 

 gaily from tangles of weeds and brush, searching for holes in which 

 to place its nest. The chiff-chaff, an Old World warbler of tiny size, 

 sang its insistent song from low trees while hunting busily for insects 

 in company with the black-cap, a larger species of the same family, 

 with more musical song and quieter movements. The meadow bunt- 

 ing, a sparrow with gray and black streaked head, was found in pairs 

 through the open pastures, and on occasion I found its more brilliant 

 relative, the yellow-hammer. Both are like our crowned sparrows in 

 habit. Titmice were found in profusion ranging from the delicately 

 colored blue tit to the slender bodied long-tailed tit, five species rang- 

 ing through the same thickets and woodlands. 



Boarding the Mixto one morning — a train that carried both pas- 

 sengers and freight — I arrived within a short time at the little village 

 of Busdongo on the northern side of the Pajares Pass at an elevation 

 of about 4,300 feet with the summit of the pass a few hundred feet 

 above. In the valleys here were little squares of cultivated fields and 

 pastures separated by rock fences, and above, slopes covered with 

 green grass or mats of heather and gorse. Banks of snow lay every- 

 where, their melting feeding the little streams, and the higher hills were 

 entirely white except where naked rock projected in rough, angular 

 spires and massive blocks of cold, blue-gray stone. Flowers dotted 

 the meadows, clear bird notes and songs came to the ear, and over all 



