CHAPTER XXXVI 



S ERR AN I A DE RONDA (Continued) 



II. THE sip:rra bermeja 



The Sierra Bermeja, standing on Mediterranean sliore, demands 

 a page or two if only because it affords a Lome to three of Spain's 

 peculiar and rarer guests — the pinsapo, the ibex, and the lammer- 

 geyer. 



r)ur earlier experience in Bermeja, our efforts to study its 

 ibex — and to secure a specimen or two — are told in Wild Spain. 

 Suffice it here to say that the characteristic of these Mediter- 

 ranean mountains is that here the ibex habitually live, and even 

 lie-u}) (as hares do), among the scrubby brushwood of the hills 

 — a remarkable deviation from their observed habits elsewhere, 

 whether iu Spain, the Caucasus and Himalayas, or wherever ibex 

 are found. But since brushwood clothes Bermeja and other 

 Mediterranean hills to their topmost heights, the local wild-goats 

 have literally no choice in the matter. Still, such a habitat must 

 strike a hunter's eye as abnormal, and is, in fact, a curious instance 

 of " adaptation to environment." ^ 



During December 1907 w^e spent some days in Bermeja in an 

 attempt to stalk the ibex — a difficult undertaking when game is 

 always three-parts hidden by scrub. On former occasions we had 

 secured a specimen of two by stalking (here called rasjjafjeo) and 

 " driving " ; but whatever chance there might have been was this 

 time annihilated by incessant mists enshrouding the heights in 

 opaque screen. Thus another carefully organised expedition and 

 unstinted labour were once more thrown away ! 



On December 19 we drove the " Pinsapal." This, commencing 



' Tlie S]>aiiisli name of tlie ibex, Cahni vumii's, sigiiilius, 7iot as niiglit apiiear, "mountain- 

 goat," but seruh-goat ; and may liave originated in this region, or at least from a liabit which 

 prevails here though obsolete everywhere else. 



360 



