368 Unexplored Spain 
scanty structure ; though, where necessary, a broad platform of 
sticks was provided—as sketched. The poults (only one in each 
nest) were now as big as guinea-fowls, with brown feathers 
sprouting through the white down. These eyries, albeit slightly 
malodorous, are always strictly cleanly, since vultures feed their 
young by disgorging half-digested food from their own crops, 
and we watched this not-pleasing operation being performed within 
some eighty yards’ distance ; 
heuce there is no carrion or 
putrefying matter lying 
about, as is the case with 
the neophron and lammer- 
geyer. 
These eyries were situate 
on three great outstanding 
stacks of rock, and during 
the scramble we came face 
to face with a pair of eagle- 
owls solemnly dreaming away 
the hours in the recesses of 
a cavern, though no sign of 
a nest was discovered. The 
caves were shared by crag- 
martins, whose swallow-like 
nests were fixed under the 
roof, usually just bevond 
ae : th: 
GRIFFON VULTURE FEEDING YOUNG— reach. Their C658 are W hite, 
PUERTA DE PALOMAS, Arun io, 1910,  fecked with grey. On 
May 18 we obtained here a 
nest of the rock-thrush with five beautiful greenish-blue eggs. 
It was built in a cranny of the crags. 
This year (1910) found us once more in the Puerta de Palomas, 
the date April 8. On rounding the Sierra de las Cabras, as L. 
was already far up the hillside, I rode forward intending to ascend 
at the north end and work back, thus meeting in centre. A suc- 
cession of mischances, however, upset that plan. A small clump of 
ilex clung to the steep above the point whereat I had left the 
horses, and in traversing this, I walked right into a calf concealed 
beneath a lentiscus. Knowing that this might involve trouble 
should its half-wild mother be within hearing, I gently retreated, 
