184 



WILD SPAIN. 



guarded from danger of surprise by sentries, who hold 

 watch and ward from some commanding point. Here, 

 except sometimes during the hottest days of July and 

 August, they are all but inaccessible — it is impossible to 

 " turn their flank," for they have, behind them, vast 

 breadths of snow impassable to man : while the vigilance 

 of their sentries simply mocks the stalker— even if then- 

 position is not physically inexpugnable. The only sys- 

 tematic method employed by native hunters, at such times, 

 is the unsatisfactory one of waiting, at dusk, to " cut tbem 

 out " in the passes by which they are accustomed to descend 

 to their feeding-grounds — a bitterly cold and most uncer- 

 tain undertaking, to say nothing of its danger, for after 

 sun-down the soft snow freezes into a solid ice-sheet, cutting 

 off the hunter's retreat along the steep slope of the sierra. 



The ibex of these higher sierras never descend to the 

 level where pines, high brushwood, or indeed any covert 

 can grow. Their home is on the snow and rock, and they 

 only descend as far as that zone of moss, heath, and 

 stunted alpine vegetation which intervenes between the 

 snow-line and the highest levels of conifer or tree-growth. 

 Their food consists of the bloom and shoots of various 

 alpine shrubs, grasses and flowers — the Spanish gorse, 

 broom, rosemary, and piorno, as well as certain narcissi, 

 mountain-berries, and the peasants' scant crops of rye- 

 grass. For this latter luxury they are tempted to come 

 down rather lower : but under no circumstances, not even 

 in winter, are the ibex of Gredos or Nevada found in the 

 forests or amongst covert of any kind. 



Such, in outline, are the habits of the ibex of the higher 

 sierras. But ibex also exist on mountain-ranges of much 

 lesser elevations, and there their habits differ widely. Some 

 of these lower hills are covered with brushwood to their very 

 crests — one has pines on its summit, at 4,800 feet. Here 

 the ibex cannot, of course, disdain the shelter of the scrub, 

 and even frequent the forests at much lower elevations. 

 We have hunted them in ground that looked far more suit- 

 able for roe-deer, and have even seen the " rootings " of pig 

 overlapping the feeding-grounds of the goats. 



