EXPERIENCES WITH EAGLES AND VULTURES. 215 



Thither accordingly we set out, riding for several miles 

 till the ascent became so abrupt, and intercepted with 

 brushwood, that it was necessary to picket the horses, 

 leaving them in charge of a lad, and to proceed on foot. 

 We crossed the ridge of the sierra and entered an upland 

 valley beyond, where, in a tall poplar, standing slightly 

 apart, was a rather small nest containing a single eaglet. 

 I must have fallen asleep at my post, for presently Jose, 

 who had left me in ambush, aroused me to say that the 

 eagle had returned, fed her young, and departed ! 

 While we were talking the female flew overhead, and 

 instantly catching sight of us, with a scream dropped a 

 rabbit she was carrying, and soared heavenwards. My 

 shot dropped her stone-dead, and she fell within a few 

 yards of her victim — a female of the Serpent-Eagle, a 

 species well known on the wooded plains, but which we 

 had hardly expected to find in the mountains. We have 

 related this incident because there followed one of the most 

 singular occurrences that have happened within our 

 ornithological experiences. On being skinned, this eagle 

 was found to contain the almost entire remains of a young 

 eagle, which, from its feathered tarsi and general appear- 

 ance, was certainly a nestling Golden Eagle — the counter- 

 part, perhaps the brother, of the one Jose had already 

 brought alive to Jerez ! We can only state the bare fact, as 

 above, and surmise that the youngster was yesterday the 

 occupant of the eyrie we had travelled so far to despoil, and 

 that the actual and would-be destroyers had thus acci- 

 dentally come in collision. 



About a league further the valley terminated in a 

 fine amphitheatre of crags, showing remarkably bold and 

 abrupt escarpments. The highest part was occupied by a 

 colony of Griffons, and while resting for an hour or so in a 

 niche of this mountain rampart, I shot four of the great 

 birds. Collectively they measured across the expanded 

 wings some thirty-eight feet, and though we had no means 

 of weighing them, estimated them at about forty pounds 

 apiece. One of the vultures shot here, a fine bird with 

 bushy white frill, the peasants asserted to be between 



