140 Unexplored Spain 
ibex appeared doomed beyond hope. Private efforts over such 
vast areas were obviously difficult, if not impossible. 
We rejoice to add that at this eleventh hour a new era of 
existence has been secured to Capra hispdnica at that precise 
psychological moment when its scant survivors were struggling in 
their last throes. The change is due to graceful action by the 
landowners in certain great mountain-ranges; and if our own 
explorations and our writings on the subject have also tended to 
assist, none surely will grudge the authors this expression of 
pride in having helped, however humbly, to preserve not only to 
Spain, but to the animal-world, one of its handsomest species. 
This new era took different forms in different places. In 
certain sierras—those of less boundless area—the owners have 
undertaken the preservation of the ibex partly from their realising 
the tangible asset this game-beast adds to the value of barren 
mountain-land, and partly in view of the legitimate sport that an 
increase in stock may hereafter afford. 
But the main factor which has assured success (and which in 
itself led up to the private efforts just named) took origin in the 
great Sierra de Grédos. This elevated region is the apex of the 
long cordillera of central Spain, the Carpeto-Vetonico range, 
which extends from Moncayo, east of Madrid, for some 300 miles 
through the Castiles and Estremadura, forming the watershed of 
Tagus and Douro. It separates the two Castiles, and passing the 
frontier of Portugal is there known as the Serra da Estrella, 
which, with the Cintra hills, extends to the Atlantic sea-board. 
Along all this extensive cordillera there is no more favoured 
resort of ibex than its highest peak, the Plaza de Almanzor, of 
2661 metres altitude (= 8700 feet) above sea-level. 
In 1905, when the ibex were about at their last gasp, the 
proprietors of the Nucléo central, which we may translate as 
the Heart of Grédos, of their own initiative, ceded to King 
Alfonso XIII. the sole rights-of-chase therein, and His Majesty 
commissioned the Marquis of Villaviciosa de Asturias to appoint 
an adequate force of guards. 
Six guards were selected from the self-same goat-herds who, up 
to that date, had themselves been engaged in hunting to exter- 
mination the last surviving ibex of the sierra, and whom we had 
ourselves employed during various expeditions therein. 
The ceded area comprised all the best game-country, defined 
