304 Unexplored Spain 



While writing the above we hear (from two sources) that the 

 " Mauser " has at hist got into the hands of at least one local 

 goat-herd, who last summer killed four out of a band of five ibex 

 — all sexes and sizes. There is no mistaking the import of this. 

 It signifies that the end is in view unless prompt measures are 

 taken to save the ibex of Nevd,da from extirpation. 



So long as local hunters were restricted to their old ball- 

 guns, the contest was fairly equal and the game could hold its 

 own. But neither ibex nor any other wild beast on earth can 

 withstand free shooting (unlicensed and unlimited) with 1000- 

 yard " repeaters." Personally the writer regards the use of 

 repeating-rifles on game as sheer barbarism. These are military 

 weapons, and should be excluded from every field of sport. 



A precisely analogous case is afforded by Norway and her rein- 

 deer. The Mauser first appeared there in 1894. Three years 

 later we pointed out, both to the Norwegian Government and also 

 in Wild Norivay, that unless steps were taken to regulate and 

 limit the resultant massacre, the wild reindeer would be extinct 

 within five years. Our warnings passed unheeded ; but the pre- 

 diction erred only on the side of moderation. For only four years 

 later (iu 1901) the Norsk Government was forced to prohibit 

 absolutely all shooting for a period of seven years, and to impose, 

 on the expiry of that time, both licence-duties and limits, alike 

 on native as well as on foreign sportsmen. 



Free shooting, unregulated and unlimited, means with modern 

 weapons instant extermination — a matter of a few years. Then, 

 after some creature has perished off" the face of the earth, we read 

 a o-ush of maudlin regret and vain disgust. It is too late ; why 

 do not these good folk bestir themselves while there is time 

 to safeguard creatures that yet survive, though menaced with 

 deadly danger? Warnings such as ours pass unnoticed, and 

 platonic tears are bottled-up for posthumous exhibition. 



In winter the ibex are driven downwards by the snow. 

 They first descend southwards to the Trevenque — one of those 

 abruptly peaked mountains that " stretch out " even skilled 

 climbers to conquer. A long knife-edged ridge is Trevenque, 

 culminating in a sheer pyramidal aiguille, its ffanks scarred by 

 ravines with complication of scarp and counter-scarp, upstanding 

 crao-s and steep shale-shoots that defy definition by pen or pencil. 



