Introductory 



and the good colonist. These precepts the Moors habitually 

 and energetically carried out to the letter. Arboriculture was 

 universal : the provinces of Valencia, Cordoba, and Toledo they 

 filled with trees — fruit-trees and timber. In the warm valleys 

 of the coast and in the sheltered glens of the mountains they 

 acclimatised exotic fruits, plants, and vegetables hitherto restricted 

 to the more benisn climes of the East or to Afric's scorching 



Types of Spanish Bird-Life ' 



GRIFFON VULTURE [Gyps fuhus) 



Abounds all over Spain : sketched while drying his wings after a thunderstorm, 

 in the Sierra de San Cristobal, Jerez. 



strand. Suo;ar-cane flourished in such luxuriance as to leave 

 available a heavy margin for export. The fig-tree and carob, 

 quince and date-palm, the cotton-plant and orange, with other 

 aromatic and medicinal herbs, together with aloes and the 

 anachronous- looking prickly-pear (Cactus), its amorphous lobes 

 reminiscent of the Pleistocene, were all brought over for the use 

 and benefit, the delight and profit of Europe. Of these, the 

 orange to-day forms one of Spain's most valuable exports, 

 representing some three millions sterling per annum. 



Silk and its manufacture represented another immense source 



