146 WILD SPAIN. 



marred by one of the points being broken. The undamaged 

 horn measured rather over twenty-eight inches. 



So passed the days with varying incident, which it 

 boots not to recount in detail ; sometimes we saw game, 

 more often the reverse. One element alone remained 

 permanent and changeless — the daily labour was 

 extreme. Strength and physical powers were taxed — 

 aye, strained, almost to the breaking point, and in these 

 contests of lung and limb the wild-goat necessarily held 

 the advantage. 



One morning, wind and weather being favourable, it was 

 proposed to double-bank our beaters — that is, to drive two 

 separate valleys at once towards a single dividing spur.* 

 The ascent to-day followed the ridge of a deep garganta, 

 or rock-abyss, embedded among pines, on one of which 

 was superimposed a pile of branches and sticks — the 

 home of a pah of Black Vultures (Vultur monaclms). It 

 was almost a solitary tree — one of the few that survived 

 above the pine-zone, finding root-hold in a crevice of the 

 hanging rock : a flat-topped, wind-tormented tree, its spread- 

 ing branches distorted by the weight of winter's snows. 

 Hard by the nest sat one of these colossal birds, not 200 

 yards away, though to have reached the spot, across the 

 gorge, might have occupied an hour. An " express " bullet 

 was sent whistling past his monkish cranium ; slowly the 

 great wings unfolded, and the vulture flapped heavily down 

 the ravine. 



Yultures are comparatively scarce in this part of Spain 

 — far more so than in Andalucia. We only noticed one 

 small colony in the Sierra de Gredos ; and of its six or 

 eight pairs, our beaters, who passed close below their 

 eyries, declared that two were of the black species. The 

 Black Vulture is not known to nest either gregariously or 



* It is worth mentioning, as showing the importance of the wind 

 and the precarious nature of this pursuit, that on the former occasion 

 a sudden change in the wind had destroyed all chance for the day, and 

 rendered useless many hours' hard work and carefully-planned opera- 

 tions. Even a "flaw" in its direction is often fatal to success, so keen 

 of scent is the cabra months. 



