Serrania de Ronda 367 
and opal, and off he goes again to soar and sing once more. His 
cousin, the blue-thrush, has also a sweet song and a similar 
hovering flight, ending in a ‘“‘drop act”; but the ascent is more 
vertical, while frequently he varies the descent and comes 
fluttering down in tree-pipit or butterfly-like style. Even the 
sober little blackchat now “shows off,” perched on some boulder 
with quivering wings and tail spread fan-like over his back. 
Both these two last, being resident, nest much earlier than the 
migratory rock-thrush: the latter was building (in crevices of 
the rocks) by mid-April, but hardly lays before May. 
These sierras being only 3000 to 4000 feet, one misses here 
some of the alpine forms observed at higher altitudes. The 
tawny pipit, for example, a sandy-hued bird with dark eye-stripe 
and active wagtail-like gait, which was common on San Cristobal 
at 4500 feet in April, never showed up here at all; nor did any 
of the following species, all so characteristic of the higher ground : 
Blackstarts, woodlarks, rock-buntings, cole- and longtail-tits, and 
tree-creepers. The choughs, spotted woodpeckers, rock-thrushes, 
crag-martins, and wood-pigeons, though observed, were here very 
much scarcer. The lammergeyer, too, rarely descends here, and 
then only while in his smoke-black uniform of immaturity. 
THe PuERTA DE PALOMAS 
In May 1883, while returning from Ubrique, our horses fell 
lame owing to loss of shoes, and for four days and nights we 
were encamped in the pass known as the Puerta de Palomas. 
There is a tiny ventoridlo, or wayside wine-shop, at the foot of 
the pass; but nights are warm in May, and we preferred the 
freedom of the open hill, where the strange growls made by 
the griffons at dawn, together with the awakening carol of the 
rock-thrush, formed our reveille each morning in that roofless 
bedroom amidst the boulders. 
The opposite side of the pass is dominated by the picturesque 
pile called the Picacho del Aljibe, a conical peak that towers in 
tiers of crags above the adjoining sierras not unlike a gigantic 
Arthur’s Seat over the Salisbury Crags. Our own side was rather 
a chaotic jumble of detached monoliths than cliffs proper, and by 
clambering over these we reached in one morning sixteen vultures’ 
nests, the easiest of access we ever struck. They were mostly 
very slight affairs, bare rock often protruding through the 
