CHAPTEll XXXIV 

 ALIMANAS 



THE MINOR BEASTS OF CHASE 



We have no British equivalent for this generic term, applied in 

 Spain to a group of creatures, chiefly belonging to the canine, 

 feline, and viverrine families, that deserve a chapter to themselves. 

 The Spanish word Alimanas includes the lynxes and wild-cats, 

 foxes, mongoose, genets, badgers, otters, and such like. It 

 might therefore be rendered as "vermin," but surely only in the 

 benevolent sense — as it were, a term of endearment. We have 

 preferred the expression " minor beasts of chase," though it may 

 be objected that such are not, in ftict, beasts of chase. We reply 

 that hardly any wild animals are harder to secure in fair contest 

 or more capable of testing the venatic resource of the hunter. 



For these animals are beasts-of-prey, and that fact alone 

 implies nothing less than that in their very nature and life-habits 

 they must be more cunning, more astute, than those other creatures 

 (mostly game) on which they are ordained to subsist. IMoreover, 

 being nocturnals, their senses of sight, scent, and hearing all far 

 exceed our own, and they possess the enormous advantage that 

 they see equally well in the dark. 



Wild Spain, with her 56 per cent of desert or sparsely peopled 

 regions, is a paradise for predatory creatures — alike the furred 

 and the feathered — and alimanas abound whether in the bush 

 and scrub of her torrid plains, or amid the heavier jungle of her 

 mountain-ranoes. 



Numerous as they are, yet these night-rovers rarely come in 

 evidence unless one goes expressly in search of them. In regular 

 shooting, with organised parties, they are more or less ignored, or 

 rather they pass unseen through the lines, moving so silently 

 and stealthily and always choosing the thickest covert. With 



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