964 PROF. A. CABRERA OX 



Before doing so, I must remai^k on the geographical distribution 

 of the species and on the diiferences between the various races. 



In that interesting book ' Unexplored Spain,' MM. Chapman 

 and Buck have quite recently told the history of the Wild Goats 

 of Spain and the manner in which they are protected against 

 imminent extinction, giving some details about their present 

 distribution. The authors are not exact, however, in saying that 

 the isolated colonies now formed by the Ibex have been " separated 

 from each other during ages." There are, in fact, strong reasons 

 for believing that in the past Ibexes inhabited every suitable 

 point of almost eveiy mountain ridge in Spain. Names recalling its 

 existence, such as Las Oabras, Cabrales, Cabrei-a, Oabreira, Cebreros *, 

 &c., are quite common in all the mountainous districts. In the 

 seventeenth century the species was found in all the Sierra Morena 

 and Sierra de Cazorla. The Sierra de Segur-a, Sierra de Francia 

 in the Salamanca Province, and the Toledo Mountains, where it 

 does not exist to-day," formed parts of its range sixty years ago, 

 and it has been found in the Sierra de Bejar, between the Sierras 

 of Fi'ancia and Gredos, so recently as 1897 t; and in 1861, the 

 date of Seoane's ' Fauna mastologica de Galicia,' a few individuals 

 remained in the mountains of that region. That Ibexes inhabit, 

 or at least inhabited in 1890 J, the mountains of Gerez, in the 

 northern border of Portugal, is a well-known fact. 



In connection with the existence of Ibexes in the western 

 extreme of the Cantabrian chain, it must be remembered that 

 fossil remains of Capra pyrenaica have been found in Santander, 

 and from this Ave may surmise that the species reached the north- 

 western corner of the Peninsula from the Pyrenees, through that 

 northern ridge. It spread from there southwards into the 

 central sierras, either through Portugal by the Serra da Estrella, 

 included in its range by Trouessart, or directly through the 

 Burgos mountains and the Guadarrama. Father Saturio Gonzalez, 

 a noteworthy collector of mammals, tells me- that he has found in 

 the old monastery of Silos a pair of Ibex horns which have been 

 preserved there for centuries, and about sixty miles east from 

 Santo Domingo de Silos there are a Sierra de Cabrejas and 

 a village named Cabrejas del Pinar. These facts seem to suggest 

 that the Ibex was once common in the mountains connecting the 

 northern chain with the Sierra de Gredos, but, since there is not 

 any evidence of its existence in the Guadarrama, too much 

 confidence cannot be put in this hypothesis. 



As to the Andalusian sierras, it is evident that the Ibex found 



* Cebra was frequently vised instead of cabra as a name for the Ibex daring the 

 twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It was from this that the old Spanish writer 

 Father Sarmiento supposed that Zebras formerly existed in Spain. The modern 

 vernacular name of the animal is cabra montes (Mountain Goat), or simply Mzow^es, 

 but there are some other local names. In the mountains about the lower Ebro it is 

 called saiivatge (the wild one) ; the people of Galicia call it crab a brava or crabafera, 

 (Wild Goat), whereas in the Pja-enees the name Sweaj't^o, related to the'English buck 

 and the French botic and bouquetin, is commonly used. 



t Rivas Mateos, Actas Soc. Esp. Hist. Nat. 1897, p. 208. 



t P. de Oliveira and L. Vieira, Annaes Scienc. Naturaes, iii. 1896, p. 91. 



