310 



WILD SPAIN. 



the 3,000-foot gorge across which the two nests faced each 

 other. The Lammergeyer, we have now ascertained, does 

 not breed, as we had expected, in those more stupendous 

 precipices beloved of Aqitila honelli, and whose height 

 dwarfs even an eagle to the similitude of the homely 

 kestrel ; but rather, either in rock-stacks such as those 

 (often not 100 feet high) which flank the lower (jaraantas, 

 or corries of the sierra, or in those generally loftier crags 

 which often belt the base of each individual mountain. 



The actual site of the nest is a small cave — rather than 

 a crevice — and a huge mass of material, the accumula- 

 tion of years, usually covers the whole floor. In one 

 case, not less than a cart-load of sticks, branches, and 

 twigs of cistus and heath had been collected, covering a 

 circular space some six feet in diameter by two in depth. 

 The present nest was hardly so large, and was completed 

 with dead vine-branches, the prunings of the previous 

 autumn ; — and contained, besides an old alparajiata, or 

 hempen sandal, several cows' hoofs, and the dried leg and 

 foot of a wild-goat. There was, however, no carrion about, 

 nor any very offensive smell, such as would have charac- 

 terized the home of a vulture. 



To an outsider, the feat of scaling even a 100-foot crag, 

 when fairly sheer, seems no easy undertaking ; but our 

 two mountain-bred lads made light work of it, one esca- 

 lading the Lammergeyer's fortress from below, the other 

 from above (which proved the easier way), and actually 

 meeting in the eyrie. Some goatherds, hearing of our 

 wish to secure a " quebranta-huesos," had removed the 

 single young bird an hour or two previously. This 

 grotesque and most uncouth fledgeling was then (at 

 end of March) about the size of a turkey, covered with 

 grey- white down, and with beak and crop so dispro- 

 portionately heavy that a recumbent position appeared 

 almost a necessity. The youngster kept up a constant 

 querulous whistle when visited, and consumed, we were 

 told, four pounds of meat daily. A month later the 

 feathers were l^eginning to show through the down, and 

 the daily consumption of meat had doubled. 



