346 Unexplored Spain 
trotting up to within a few yards—whether to devour the 
supposed rabbit or merely from curiosity was not apparent. On 
realising the situation, she turned and dashed off with an 
indignant snort, followed by her striped brood, but did not go 
far before stopping (like Lot’s wife) to listen and look back. 
Later, at the Sabinal, just upon dusk, a fox appeared about 
120 yards away, down-wind. Though quite aware of our 
presence, both by scent and sight, he deliberately sat down on 
his haunches to watch ; but no charm of the chillar would induce 
a nearer approach, and a rifle-ball whistling within an inch or two 
of his ears broke the spell. 
On May 16, 1910, a mongoose responded with unusual alacrity 
to the first “call,” running up within twenty yards. This was 
an adult male and weighed 84 lbs. 
We have endeavoured to rear some of these animals in cap- 
tivity. The young wild-cats are by far the most intractable— 
perfect fiends of savage fury, quite unamenable to civilisation. 
The lynx at least affects a measure of subjection, but remains 
always unreliable and treacherous in spirit. The story of how 
one of our tame lynxes attacked and nearly killed a poor lavan- 
dera is told in Wild Spain, p. 447. 
