28 Unexplored Spain 



superficies, either a desert wilderness or a mountain solitude, 

 naturally lends congenial conditions of life to the predatory forms 

 that rely on hooked bill, on tooth and claw, fang and talon, to 

 ravage their more gentle neighbours. Savage raptores, furred 

 and feathered, characterise her wilder scenes. AVherever one 

 may travel, a day's ride will surely reveal huge vultures and 

 eagles circling aloft, intent on blood. Throughout the wooded 

 plains the majestic Imperial Eagle is overlord — you know him 

 afar in sable uniform, offset by snow-white epaulets. Among the 

 sierras a like condominium is shared by the Golden and Bonelli's 



Types ok Spanish Bird-Life 



WHITE- FACED DUCK {Erismatura leucocej^hala) 



Bill much dilated, waxy-blue in colour. Wings extremely short ; a sheeny grebe-like plumage, 

 and long stiff tail, often carried erect. 



Eagles — and they have half-a-dozen rivals, to say nothing of 

 lynxes and fierce wolves (we give a photo of one, the gape of 

 whose jaws exceeds by one-half that of an African hyaena). 

 Then there patrol the wastes a horde of savage night-rovers, 

 denominated in Spanish Alimanas, to which a special chapter 

 is devoted. 



In Estremadura, where man is a negligible quantity, and 

 along the wild wooded valley of the Tagus, roams the Fallow- 

 deer in aboriginal purity of blood — whether any other European 

 country can so claim it, the authors have been unable to ascertain. 

 In Cantabria and the Pyrenees the Chamois abounds. 



Of the big game (the list includes red, roe, and fallow-deer. 



