i66 



Unexplored Spain 



cautiously shifted my post to the banks of a mountain-burnlet 

 that, embowered in oleauders/ gurgled hard by. In those 

 glancing streams, while I sat motionless, a pair of water-shrews 

 were also busied with their lunch — dipping and diving, turning 

 over pebbles, and searching each nook and cranny of the crystal 

 pool. liOvely little creatures they were — velvety black with 



GRIFFON VULTURE 



snow-white undersides, which showed conspicuously on either 

 flank ; but the curious feature was the silver sheen caused by 

 infinite air-bubbles that still adhered to the fur while they swam 

 beneath the surface. They recalled a similar scene in an elk- 

 forest of distant Norway ; but never in Spanish sierras have 



' The oleander is poisonous to horses and other donieslic animals, and is instinctively 

 avoided by both game and cattle. During the Peninsular War it is recorded that several 

 British soldiers came by their deaths through this cause. A foraging party cut and peeled 

 sonae oleander branches to use as skewers in roasting meat over the camp-fires. Of twelve 

 men who ate the meat, seven died. 



