366 Unexplored Spain 



was trottiii^i,' up a stone-slide on the extreme left. Here a ritle-sliot 

 broke a foreleg, and the disabled beast, unable to face the hill, retreated 

 to the thicket below, scattering dogs and beaters in headlong Hight. And 

 now commenced the hue and cry — the real hard work for those who 

 meant to see the end and earn the spoils of war. Presently Moro's deep 

 voice told us of the boar at bay, far away down in the depths of tlie 

 defile. What followed in that hurly-burly — that mad scramble through 

 brake and thicket, down crag and scree — cannot be written. Each man 

 only knows what he did himself, or did not do. We can answer for 

 three. One of these seated himself on a rock and lit a cigarette. The 

 others, ten minutes later, arrived on the final scene, one minus his nether 

 garments and sundry patches of skin, but in time to take part in the 

 death of as grand a boar as roams the Spanish sierras. 



This last spring (1910), after thirty-eight years, we revisited 

 the Boca de la Foz, partly to reassure ourselves tliat the above 

 description was not overdrawn. No ! 'Tis a terrible wild gorge, 

 the Foz, but the days when we can follow a wounded boar 

 through obstacles such as those have passed away. The boars, 

 we were told, are still there, and so are the vultures in those 

 mao-nificent crags. We climbed along the ledges and there were 

 the o-reat stick-built nests, each in its ancestral site. In March 

 each contains a single egg; now (April) that is replaced by a 

 leaden-hued chick. These cliffs are also tenanted by ravens and 

 a siugle pair of choughs. Neophrons occupied the same cavern 

 whence I shot a female in 1872, and crag-martins held their old 

 abodes, plastered on to the roofs of the caves. 



As April advances a new and striking bird-form arrives to 

 adorn the higher sierras — the least observant can scarce miss this, 

 the rock - thrush [Monticola saxatilis), conspicuous alike in 

 plumage and actions ; with clear blue head and chestnut breast, 

 its colour-scheme includes a broad patch of white set in the 

 centre of a dark back. The contrast is most effective, and, so 

 far as we know, this "fashion" of a white back is unique among 

 birds, unless indeed it be shared by Bonelli's eagle. The rock- 

 thrush is also endowed with a lovely wald song, quite low and 

 simple, but replete with a fine " high-tops " quality. By April 

 20 he yields to vernal impulses, and his courting is pretty to see ; 

 wdieeling around on transparent pinions, he soars and sings the 

 livelong day ; at intervals, with collapsed wing, he drops like a 

 stone to join his sober-hued mate among the rocks ; a few 

 picturesque poses, displaying all those flashing tints of orange 



