In the Sierra Nevada 317 
that had caused us some consternation on our first arrival! The 
value of the farm, we were told, is put at £8000 Spanish, repre- 
senting some £400 as yearly rental. 
Two years before, wolves had become such a pest to the 
flocks that strychnine was universally resorted to, with the result 
that to-day not a wolf is to be seen in the whole sierra. Foxes 
also perished, and the ouarda, Manuel Gallegos, told us that he 
had thus obtained several wild-cats (Gatos montéses) whose skins 
fetched 20 pesetas apiece as ladies’ furs. The following day we 
chanced on a dead marten-cat, evidently killed by poison; and 
on showing it to Manuel with the remark that that was not a 
gato montés, he replied: “No, sefior, that is a garduho; pero 
lo mismo da” =“‘it’s all the same!” 
Accuracy in definition is not a strong 
point with Manuel, nor indeed is it 
with any of our Spanish friends. 
Martens are the commoner animal 
in Nevada; there may, nevertheless, 
be a few true wild-cats, and there 
certainly are some lynxes. The four- 
footed fauna of Nevada is sadly 
limited. There are neither deer of any 
kind—red, roe, or fallow—nor wild- 
boar. Bare rocks afford no covert for 
these: there is, of course, one compensating equivalent in the ibex. 
Small game is equally conspicuous by its absence. Local cazadores 
(each of whom, of course, possesses a decoy-bird—reclamo) 
enlarge on the abundance of partridge and hares, yet we saw hardly 
any game whether here on the Monachil, on the Genil, Darro, 
or at any of the points whereon we have explored the Sierra 
Nevada. There must, however, be a sprinkling to maintain the 
golden eagles and peregrines, both of which birds-of-prey we 
observed. 
There were small trout in the Monachil; but in Genil and 
Dilar (which latter springs from the alpine Laguna de las Yeguas 
just under the Picacho de la Veleta) trout ran up to a quarter- 
pound or thereby : the method of capture is dynamite. 
Ibex at this season (May) frequent the southern slopes of the 
main chain—looking down upon the Alpuxarras—a favourite 
resort being the wild rocks of Alcaziba, east of Mulahacen ; 
GOLDEN EAGLE HUNTING 
