Sierra Moréna 163 
raya, 100 yards away, in two enormous bounds. There was just 
time to see glorious antlers with many-forked tops ere he dived 
from sight, plunging into ten-foot scrub. 
I had fired both barrels, necessarily with but an apology for 
an aim and the second purely “at a venture.” Three minutes 
later resounded the tinkling cencerros (bells) of the podencos, and 
when two of these hounds had followed the spoor ahead, all mute, 
then I knew that both bullets had spent their force on useless 
scrub. 
Fortune favoured. Half an hour afterwards, a second stag 
followed. This time a gentle rustle in the bush, and one clink of 
AZURE-WINGED MAGPIE 
a hoof on rock had caught my faulty ear. Then coroneted 
antlers showed up from the depths below, and so soon as the 
great brown body came in view, a bullet on the shoulder at short 
fange dropped him dead. This was an average stag, weighing 
255 lbs. clean, but although “royal,” carried a smaller head 
than that first seen. Later, two other big stags descended 
together into the unseen depths on my front, but whither they 
subsequently took their course—quien sabe? I saw them no 
more. 
The only other animal that crossed my line during the day 
was a mongoose, but objects of interest never lacked. Close 
behind my post, a huge stick-built nest filled a small ilex. This 
was the ancestral abode of a pair of griffons, and its owners were 
already busy renewing their home, though my presence sadly 
disconcerted them. Hereabouts these vultures breed regularly on 
trees, a most unusual habit, due presumably to the lack of 
