Sierra Morena 



167 



we noticed water-shrews except on this occasion. While yet 

 watching the water-fairies, another movement caught the corner 

 of one eye ; with slow sedate steps, a grey wild-cat was 

 descending the opposite slope. She saw nothing, yet the 

 foresight of the "303 carbine was recusant, it declined to get 

 down into the nick, and a miss resulted. But what a bound the 

 feline gave as an expanding Imllet (at 2000 feet a second velocity) 

 shattered the sierra half an inch above her back ! 



An incident occurred near this point (though in another year) 

 with a stag. Two shots had been fired on the left, when the 

 slightest sound behind and above inspired a prepared glance in 

 that direction — and only just in time, for three seconds later a 

 glorious pair of antlers showed up 

 on the nearest bush-clad height, 

 and the easiest of shots yielded a 

 3 5 -inch trophy. 



The annexed drawing shows a 

 14-pointer, which was killed here 

 the following year by our host, Sr. 

 Don Juan Calvo de Leon of 

 Mezquitillas. In mere inches the 

 measurements may be surpassed 

 by others, but no head that we have seen excels this in 

 extraordinary boldness of curve and symmetry of form. This 

 stag was shot on the Puntales del Peco, January 17, 1908, and 

 in the same beat Sr. Juan Calvo, Junr., secured another fine 

 14-pointer, as below : — 



Less rosy on tliat occasion was the writer's own luck. My 

 post in Los Puntales was in a narrow neck or " pass " in the 

 knife-edged ridge of a mountain-spur, the rock-strewn ground, 

 overgrown with cistus shoulder-high, falling sharply away both 

 before and behind. In front I looked into a chasm probably 

 1500 feet in depth, the hither slope being invisible, so sharp was 



