On Travel and Other Things 29 



wild-boar, ibex, chamois, brown bear, etc.), we treat in full detail 

 hereafter. 



As regards winged game, this south-western corner of Europe 

 is singularly weak. There exists but a single resident species 

 of true game-bird — the redleg. Compare this with northern 

 Europe, where, in a Scandinavian elk-forest, we have shot five 

 kinds of grouse within five miles ; while southwards, in Africa, 

 francolins and guinea-fowl are counted in dozens of species. True, 

 there are ptarmigan in the Pyrenees, capercaillie, hazel-grouse, 

 and grey partridge in Cantabria, but all these are confined to the 

 Biscayan area. Nor are we overlooking the grandest game-bird 

 of all, the Great Bustard, chiefest ornament of Spanish steppe, 

 and there are others — the lesser bustard, quail, sand-grouse, etc. 

 — but these hardly fall within our definition. As for the teeming 

 hosts of wildfowl and waterfowl that throng the Spanish marismas 

 (some coming from Africa in spring, the bulk fleeing hither from' 

 the Arctic winter), all these are so fully treated elsewhere as to 

 need no further notice here. 



Spain boasts several distinct species peculiar to her limits. 

 Among such (besides the ibex) are that curious amphibian, the 

 Pyrenean musk-rat {Myogale pyrenaica), not again to be met 

 with nearer than the eastern confines of Europe. Birds aff"ord 

 an even more striking instance. The Spanish azure-winged 

 magpie [Cyanopica cooki) abounds in Castile, Estremadura, and 

 the Sierra Mor^na, but its like is seen nowhere else on earth till 

 you reach China and Japan ! 



