140 Unexplored Spain 



ibex appeared doomed beyond hope. Private efforts over such 

 vast areas were obviously difficult, if uot iinpossil)le. 



We rejoice to add that at this eleventh hour a new era of 

 existence has been secured to Capra hispdnica at that precise 

 psychological moment when its scant survivors were struggling in 

 their last throes. The change is due to graceful action by the 

 landowners in certain great mountain-ranges ; and if our own 

 explorations and our writings on the subject have also tended to 

 assist, none surely will grudge the authors this expression of 

 pride in having helped, however humbly, to preserve not only to 

 Spain, but to the animal-world, one of its handsomest species. 



This new era took different forms in different places. In 

 certain sierras — those of less boundless area — the owners have 

 undertaken the preservation of the ibex partly from their realising 

 the tangible asset this o^ame-beast adds to the value of barren 

 mountain-land, and partly in view of the legitimate sport that an 

 increase in stock may hereafter afford. 



But the main factor which has assured success (and which in 

 itself led up to the private efforts just named) took origin in the 

 great Sierra de Gredos. This elevated region is the apex of the 

 long Cordillera of central Spain, the Carpeto-Vetonico range, 

 which extends from Moncayo, east of Madrid, for some 300 miles 

 throuo;h the Castiles and Estremadura, formino; the watershed of 

 Tagus and Douro. It separates the two Castiles, and passing the 

 frontier of Portugal is there known as the Serra da Estrella, 

 which, with the Cintra hills, extends to the Atlantic sea-board. 

 Along all this extensive cordillera there is no more favoured 

 resort of ibex than its highest peak, the Plaza de Almanzor, of 

 2661 metres altitude ( = 8700 feet) above sea-level. 



In 1905, when the ibex were about at their last gasp, the 

 proprietors of the Niicleo central, which we may translate as 

 the Heart of Gredos, of their own initiative, ceded to King 

 Alfonso XIII. the sole rights-of-chase therein, and His Majesty 

 commissioned the Marquis of Villaviciosa de Asturias to appoint 

 an adequate force of guards. 



Six guards were selected from the self-same goat-herds who, up 

 to that date, had themselves been enocaged in hunting to exter- 

 mination the last surviving ibex of the sierra, and whom we had 

 ourselves employed during various expeditions therein. 



The ceded area comprised all the best game-country, defined 



