966 PROF. A. CABREKA ON 



the Middle Ages, when wikl-goat meat was a very favoured dish 

 at every Spanish table. A different subspecies is found in each 

 of these areas, as follows : — 



(a) Pyrenean area, comprising the Spanish side of the Pyrenees 

 and, in former times, the eastern part of the Cantabrian chain. 

 Its peculiar Ibex is Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica. It may be con- 

 sidered as practically extinct, being today found only in the 

 northern extreme of the Huesca Province, about the Mount 

 Perdido*. Two old bucks, three females, and three or four 

 half -grown individuals remained there in 1907 t. In a recent 

 letter on this subject, the Count of San Juan, who spends a great 

 part of his time hunting in the Pyrenees, kindly informs me : 

 " I think that probably no more than ten or twelve Ibexes 

 remain in all the Pyrenean chain. A pair survived recently in 

 the Maladeta ; somebody shot the female, and the male sought 

 refuge among a herd of domestic Goats and was subsequently 

 killed by the goatherd." 



(6) North-western, or Atlantic, area, formed by the mountains 

 of Galicia and Northern Portugal. The lack of suitable material 

 prevents correct identification of the Wild Goat found there, but 

 from the description by Barboza du Bocage J I surmise that it 

 represents a peculiar subspecies, which I do not care to describe 

 at present. At all events, it is well-nigh extinct, only a few 

 specimens, if any, remaining in the Portuguese mountains of 

 Gerez. Not being a Spanish race, we need not discuss it now. 



(c) Central area, embracing the Sierra de Credos and, in the 

 past, the ridges of El Barco, Bejar and Francia, and the hills 

 of Toledo. The subspecies inhabiting this area, at present reduced 

 to a single colony in the highest peaks of Credos, will be named 

 a,nd described below. MM. Chapman and Buck have told the 

 history of this Ibex so accurately that it is unnecessary to repeat 

 it here. The colony consists of about three hundred and fifty 

 head, and having been under royal protection since 1905 it is 

 rapidly improving. 



(cZ) Mediterranean area, from the mountains forming the 

 Guadalquivir basin, eastwards and northwards through the 

 sierras of the Valencia Province to the mouth of the Ebro. It 

 is inhabited by Capra pyrenaica hispanica (type locality, Sierra 

 Nevada), a subspecies not so near extinction as the Pyrenean and 

 Central forms. No less than six colonies, in fact, are known to 

 exist, the exact number of heads in each of them being unknown. 

 Three of these colonies are in Soiath Spain, viz. : — one in Sierra 

 Nevada, another in the two parallel ridges of Sierra Bermeja and 



* The Mont Pevdn of the French. It is a custom with many English writers to 

 use French names for localities on the Spanish slope of the Pyrenees, but, in my 

 opinion, such a course is against commonsense. Since these localities are in Spain, 

 Spanish names must be preferred in every case in which there is not an English name 

 for them. 



t Gourdon, Bull. Soc. Sc. Nat. de I'Ouest de la France, (2) viii. 1908, p. 12. 



1 Mem. Acad. Sc. Lisboa, 1857. 



