132 



WILD SPAIK. 



intervening plains. They inhabit all the Pyrenees* and 

 are comparatively numerous on the hills round Andorra 

 (Pyrenees orient-ales). In the south their great strong- 

 holds are the Sierras Nevada and Morena, where herds 

 of twenty, thirty, or even fifty, may sometimes be seen 

 together. Besides these main southern haunts, the ibex 

 have several detached colonies in the hill-ranges of 

 Andalucia and Estremadura. Along all the elevated 

 cordillera of Central Spain, the ibex find a congenial 

 home : but their chosen stronghold is in the extensive 

 Sierra de Gredos. This elevated point is the apex of the 

 long Carpeto-Yetonico range which extends from Moncayo 

 through the Castiles and Estremadura, forming the 

 watershed of the Tagus and Douro ; it separates the two 

 Castiles, and passing the frontier of Portugal, is there 

 known as the Serra da Estrella, which (with the Cintra 

 hills) extends to the Atlantic seaboard. Along all this 

 extensive cordillera there is no more favourite ground for the 

 ibex than its highest peak, the Plaza de Almanzor, 10,000 

 feet above sea-level. During- the winter and early spring 

 the wild goats have a predilection for the southern slopes 

 towards Estremadura : but in summer and autumn large 

 herds, often numbering dozens, and especially the noble 

 rams, make their home in the environs of Almanzor and 

 the lonely alpine lakes of Gredos. 



Our personal experiences of the Spanish ibex are limited 

 to four points — two in the southern sierras, and two on the 

 central cordillera : in three of which the habits of the goats 

 exhibited some very remarkable variations. These, how- 

 ever, we describe more particularly when treating of ibex- 

 shooting in other chapters. 



The ibex is strictly nocturnal in its habits, passing the 

 day at rest, either on the snow-fields or amidst the most 

 rugged and inaccessible ground within its reach, and only 

 descending to lower levels to feed after sun-down. This 



* " In the Pyrenees," Sir Victor Brooke writes us, " they are rare, 

 and live in the worst precipices I ever saw an animal in. They go into 

 far worse ground than chamois, and are very nocturnal — never seen 

 except in the dusk and early dawn, unless disturbed." 



