CHAPTER XXXIV 
ALIMANAS 
THE MINOR BEASTS OF CHASE 
We have no British equivalent for this generic term, applied in 
Spain to a group of creatures, chiefly belonging to the canine, 
feline, and viverrine families, that deserve a chapter to themselves. 
The Spanish word Alimafas includes the lynxes and wild-cats, 
foxes, mongoose, genets, badgers, otters, and such like. It 
might therefore be rendered as “vermin,” but surely only in the 
benevolent sense—as it were, a term of endearment. We have 
preferred the expression “‘ minor beasts of chase,” though it may 
be objected that such are not, in fact, beasts of chase. We reply 
that hardly any wild animals are harder to secure in fair contest 
or more capable of testing the venatic resource of the hunter. 
For these animals are beasts-of-prey, and that fact alone 
implies nothing less than that in their very nature and life-habits 
they must be more cunning, more astute, than those other creatures 
(mostly game) on which they are ordained to subsist. Moreover, 
being nocturnals, their senses of sight, scent, and hearing all far 
exceed our own, and they possess the enormous advantage that 
they see equally well in the dark. 
Wild Spain, with her 56 per cent of desert or sparsely peopled 
regions, is a paradise for predatory creatures—alike the furred 
and the feathered—and alimafias abound whether in the bush 
and scrub of her torrid plains, or amid the heavier jungle of her 
mountain-ranges. 
Numerous as they are, yet these night-rovers rarely come in 
evidence unless one goes expressly in search of them. In regular 
shooting, with organised parties, they are more or less ignored, or 
rather they pass unseen through the lines, moving so silently 
and stealthily and always choosing the thickest covert. With 
337 Z 
