ano Unexplored Spain 
ripe fruit, the crossbill would need to nest in autumn, and that 
(wide as is the latitude of its breeding-season) is too much even 
for the Pico-tuerto. An interesting species found here in March 
was the cole-tit (Parus pinsapinensis?), which climbed around 
us, swinging from twigs within a yard as we sat at lunch. 
Blackstarts abounded, also firecrests. The latter have a pretty 
habit of engaging in aérial struggle—whether for love or war— 
both falling locked together to earth, as blue-tits do. On one 
such occasion a male, ere taking wing, spread out his flaming 
crown fanlike, as it were a halo. 
Beyond the pinsdpo-forests succeeds a region of wiry esparto- 
grass, up which we climbed to yet more sterile zones above. Here 
cruel rocks are adorned with a dwarf sword-broom, steel-tipped, 
a thorny berberis, and vicious pin-cushion gorse that protects 
its newer growths (not that there is anything tender about it at 
any stage) by a delicate grey tracery that deceives a careless 
eye. For that subtle tracery is, in fact, the indurated malice 
of last year’s spikey armour. No handhold does nature here 
vouchsafe. 
Curiously, we noticed woodlarks up here, while blackstarts 
abounded as titlarks on a Northumbrian moor. In an ivy-clad 
gorge at 4200 feet we found two nearly completed nests in 
rock crevices: one occupied a vertical fissure that needed quite 
twelve inches of packed moss to provide a foundation, the cup- 
shaped nest being superimposed. But it was not till a month later 
(April 24) that these birds were laying in earnest. 
At 5000 feet the “Piorno” (Spartius scorpius) began to 
grow, a red-stemmed shrub, known locally as Leche-interna, 
and on breaking it, the twigs are found to be filled with a milky 
fluid that justifies the name. The piorno we have never found 
growing except on the high tops of Grédos and other lofty sierras, 
where it forms a chief food of the Spanish ibex, its presence being, 
in fact, always associated with that of the wild-goat. Alas! 
that here, on San Cristobal, that association has been severed— 
another instance of the heedless improvidence that marks the 
Spanish race. Fifteen years ago they destroyed the last ibex ; 
fifteen years hence they will have destroyed the last pinsdpo ! 
Once for brief moments a broad-horned head, peering over 
the topmost crags, lent joyous hope that after all an ibex or 
two might yet survive. But the intruder proved to be one of 
