394 Unexplored Spain 
baena; our British blindworm (Anguis fragilis) is another, and 
that also we did not know before. There are curious reptiles here 
in Spain—the chameleon, for example. The lobe-footed gecko, 
Salamanquésa in Spanish, haunts sunny rocks where insects 
abound. But he carries war into the enemy’s camp, invading 
(not singly, but in force) the wild-bees’ nests. A Spanish bee- 
keeper gravely assured us that the cold-blooded gecko does this 
thing expressly to enjoy the sensation of being stung in twenty 
places at once! Here in a shady glade lie strewn broadcast the 
wings of butterflies—examine very closely the bush above, and 
presently an iris-less eye, expressionless as a grey pear], will meet 
your own. That is a praying 
mantis (or Santa Teresa in 
Spanish), a practical insect but 
no aesthete, since he devours 
the ugly body and casts aside 
the beauteous wings !—see his 
portrait at p. 87. Among 
butterflies we counted here 
the scarce swallowtail, Thais 
polyxena (hatching out on 
April 3), Vanessa polychloros, 
a big fritillary with blood-red under-surface to its fore-wings 
(Argynnis maia, Cramer), Euchloébelia (March) and the curious 
insect figured alongside, we know not what it is.’ 
For more than thirty years within our knowledge (and 
probably for centuries before) these cliffs have formed a home of 
Bonelli’s eagle. Two huge stick-built nests stand out in visible 
projection from crevices in the crag, some forty yards apart. 
To-day (April 3) the occupied eyrie contained a down-clad eaglet, 
four partridges, and half a rabbit, besides a partridge’s egg, intact, 
and sundry scraps of flesh, all quite fresh. The nest was lined 
with green olive-twigs ; swarms of carrion-flies buzzed around, and . 
a great tortoiseshell butterfly alit on its edge while we were yet 
inside. The parent eagles soared overhead, the female carrying a 
half rabbit, which, in her impatience, she presently commenced to 
devour, the pair perching on a dead ilex, and affording us this 
1 Common British birds we exclude from notice, or might fill a page with swarming gold- 
finches, robins, wrens, chaffinch, blackbird, stonechat, whitethroats, tree-pipits, titlarks (the 
last three on passage), blackcap, garden-warbler, whinchat, redstart, and a host more. 
