CHAPTER XV 

 SIERRA M0R:6NA (Coritinued) 



RED DEER AND BOAR 



The mouutaiii deer of the Sierra Morena are the grandest of their 

 kind in Spain, and will compare favourably with any truly wild 

 deer in Europe.^ The drawings, photographs, and measurements 

 o-iven in this chapter prove so much, but no mere numerals 

 convev an adequate conception of these magnificent harts, as 

 seen in the full glory of life bounding in unequal leaps over 

 some rocky pass, or picking more deliberate course up a stone 

 stairway. 



Massive as they are in body (weighing, say, 300 lbs. clean), 

 yet even so the giant antlers appear almost disproportionate in 

 length and superstructure. 



The whole Sierra Morena being clad with brushwood and 

 jungle, thicker in places, but nowhere clear, shooting is practically 

 confined to " driving " on that extensive scale termed, in Spanish 

 phrase, monteria. 



Before describing two or three typical experiences of our 

 own in this sierra, we attempt a sketch of the system of the 

 monteria as practised throughout Spain. 



The area of operations being immense and clad with almost 

 continuous thicket, it is customary to employ two or three 

 separate packs (termed rchdles, or recobas), counting in all as 

 many as seventy or eighty hounds. The extra packs — beyond 

 that belonging to the host — are brought by shooting guests, and 

 each pack has its own huntsman (perrero), whom alone his own 



> We exclude from consideration all deer that are winter-fed or otherwise assisted, and of 

 course all that have been " improved " by crosses with extraneous blood. These mountain 

 deer of Spain are true native aborigines, unaltered and living the same wild life as they lived 

 here in Roman days and in ages before. 



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