340 Unexplored Spain 
commanding point and salient angle or other local ‘advantage ” 
in the terrain. 
Such drives necessarily occupy more time; moreover, the precise 
lines of entry along which game may approach are less restricted— 
hence follows an even greater demand on that vigilance already 
emphasised. But to the hunter the mental gratification, the 
sense of dominion achieved, is ample reward when his deep-laid 
plans succeed and when along one or more of his ambushed lines 
the cunning carnivorae pursue an unsuspecting course. 
Nature herself may assist by signs which set the expectant 
hunter yet more instantly alert. A distant kite suddenly 
swerving or checking its flight has seen something. The 
chattering of a band of magpies may only mean that they have 
struck a “find,’ say a dead rabbit—tacitus pasci st sposset 
corvus, etc. But it may easily indicate a moving nocturnal, and 
such signs should never be ignored. Similarly a covey of 
partridges springing with continued cackling is a certain token 
of the presence of an enemy; while a terrified-looking rabbit, 
with staring eye and ears laid back, means that an interview is 
then instantly impending. 
It may be necessary (as where a desert-stretch flanks the beat) 
to place “stops” far outside. These are as important as in a 
grouse-drive, but quite tenfold more difficult to array. 
In these more extensive operations the lynx, in evading the 
guns, is sometimes intercepted by the advancing pack behind. 
Then, if by luck the cat can be forced into the open, she goes 
off at fine speed in great bounds, as a leopard covers the veld, 
and (the horses in this case being picketed close by) may some- 
times be “tree’d” or run to bay in some distant thicket. In 
that case the assistance of the hunters is needed, for a lynx at 
bay will hold-up a whole pack of podencos, sitting erect on her 
haunches with her back to the bush and dealing half-arm blows 
with lightning speed. These podencos, it should be explained, 
are not intended to close, since all high-couraged ‘dogs, we find, 
meet a speedy death from the tusks of wild-boars. 
When pressed in the open, we have seen a lynx deliberately 
pass through deep water that lay in her line of flight. 
3. Cauiinc.—The coney was ever a puny folk, yet in Tarshish 
he thrives and multiplies amidst numberless foes aloft and alow. 
From the heavens above fierce eyes directing hooked beaks and 
