482 ORNITHOLOGICAL SKETCHES 
in the Sierra de Ronda, nor of course among the flat sur- 
roundings of Seville, or on the banks of the Guadalquivir. 
As I visited no part of Portugal except the immediate 
neighbourhood of the capital, I can say nothing about its 
occurrence in that country from my own observation ; while 
in the large Royal Museum at Lisbon—where the collections, 
in pleasing contrast to all those of Spain, are quite up to the 
mark of modern science—every stuffed Bearded Vulture that 
I saw came from the latter country. Prof. Barboza du Bocage, 
the keeper of the museum, who is so well known to all orni- 
thologists, also told me that it is one of the greatest rarities 
in Portugal, having only been occasionally seen in the moun- 
tainous parts of the country near the Spanish frontier, while 
its nest has never been found. 
In the range of the Picos de Europa, in the north of 
Spain, I discovered an abandoned nest situated on a lofty 
precipice that rose from a high desolate mountain valley 
clothed with luxuriant beech woods, and inhabited by bears 
and izards (Spanish chamois). According to the informa- 
tion that I received from the herdsmen, this nest had been 
occupied the year before by a pair of Bearded Vultures; and 
from what these men said I could easily see that they knew 
how to distinguish this species from the other raptorial birds. 
I inspected the nest, which was placed in a hole just like the 
one that I had found in the Sierra Nevada. 
In the same mountains above Cobadonga, and not far from 
the abandoned nest, I one morning saw a very dark-coloured 
young bird not more than a year and a half old. It was with 
a large flock of vultures that were circling round the last 
remnants of a dead cow; but it always kept rather higher up 
than the Griffon Vultures, and when I approached it was the 
first to go. On my proceeding to lay out a sheep as a bait 
it appeared again with many of the other birds, circled con- 
stantly round the carcass at a considerable height, and looked 
