THE LAKGE GAME OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 439 



or less private property. At the same time they exist in a 

 perfectly wild state, and quite unenclosed, at several places — 

 especially in the neighbourhood of Madrid, where the Eoyal 

 estates of Aranjuez, Bio-frio, El Pardo, &c, have tended to 

 disseminate a wild race outside their boundaries. 



The Spanish fallow deer are of the spotted axis -like type. 



The Boebttck in Spain. 

 (Cervus ca/preolus.) 



Though plentiful in the wooded ravines of the sierras, where 

 it frequents sapling-thickets in preference either to scrub or 

 forest proper, yet the roe is seldom made a special object of 

 pursuit. The few roebuck — in Spanish, corzo — that have fallen 

 to our guns have been killed when in pursuit of pig or other 

 game. 



Yet to this deer we owe as narrow an escape as can be faced ; 

 while roe-shooting in the Sierra de la Jarda, and riding along a 

 precipitous goat-track, a projecting crag barred the way : in 

 rounding the obstruction, it was necessary that the horses 

 should simultaneously make an upward step or two on a sort 

 of rock-stair. During this awkward manoeuvre, one jaca 

 brought his flank sharply in collision with the crag, struggled 

 for one desperate moment to recover equilibrium, and then 

 plunged, broadside on, down the precipice. His rider, spring- 

 ing from the stirrups, clutched a retamo bush, and thus hung 

 suspended " between the devil and the deep." Poor Bolero 

 fell crashing through the ilexes that clung to the crag — we 

 could hear the smashing of branch after branch as he broke 

 his way downwards. We descended to recover the gun, saddle, 

 and equipments from the killed horse ; but, to our amazement, 

 found him quietly grazing — the gun still in the slings, the 

 bridle over his nose — hardly, beyond a cut or two, the worse for 

 his adventure. The fall was over 100 feet, but the stout 

 branches of ilex and chmparro, with a marvellous measure of 

 luck, had saved his life. 



Koebuck, in Spain, are mostly killed with large shot (slugs), 

 not ball ; and to those who are content with this game, nearly 

 all the southern sierras would yield a measure of sport, com- 



