35^ Unexplored Spain 



ripe fruit, tlie crossbill would need to nest in autumn, and that 

 (wide as is the latitude of its breeding-season) is too much even 

 for the Pico-tuerto. An interesting species found here in March 

 was the cole-tit [Parus innsapiuensis ?), \vliich climbed around 

 us, swinging from twigs within a yard as we sat at lunch. 

 Blackstarts abounded, also firecrests. The latter have a pretty- 

 habit of engaging in aerial struggle — whether for love or war — 

 both falling locked together to earth, as blue-tits do. On one 

 such occasion a, male, ere taking wing, spread out his flaming 

 crown fanlike, as it were a halo. 



Beyond the pinsilpo-forests succeeds a region of wiry esparto- 

 grass, up which we climbed to yet more sterile zones above. Here 

 cruel rocks are adorned with a dwarf sword-broom, steel-tipped, 

 a thorny l)erberis, and vicious pin-cushion gorse that protects 

 its newer growths (not that there is anything tender about it at 

 any stage) by a delicate grey tracery that deceives a careless 

 eye. For that subtle tracery is, in fact, the indurated malice 

 of last year's spikey armour. No handhold does nature here 

 vouchsafe. 



Curiously, we noticed woodlarks up here, while l)lackstarts 

 abounded as titlarks on a Northumbrian moor. In an ivj^-clad 

 gorge at 4200 feet we found two nearly completed nests in 

 rock crevices : one occupied a vertical fissure that needed quite 

 twelve inches of packed moss to provide a foundation, the cup- 

 shaped nest being superimposed. But it was not till a month later 

 (April 24) that these l)irds were laying in earnest. 



At 5000 feet the " Pioruo " (Spartms scorpius) began to 

 grow, a red-stemmed shrub, known locally as Leche-interna, 

 and on breaking it, the twigs are found to be filled with a milky 

 fluid that justifies the name. The piorno we have never found 

 growing except on the high tops of Gredos and other lofty sierras, 

 where it forms a chief food of the Spanish ibex, its presence being, 

 in fact, always associated with that of the wild-goat. Alas ! 

 that here, on San Cristobal, that association has been severed — 

 another instance of the heedless improvidence that marks the 

 Spanish race. Fifteen years ago they destroyed the last ibex ; 

 fifteen years hence they will have destroyed the last pinsapo ! 



Once for brief moments a broad-horned head, peering over 

 the topmost crags, lent joyous hope that after all an ibex or 

 two might yet survive. But the intruder proved to be one of 



