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 



