THE BIG GAME OF SPAIN 
Taking Spain as a whole, the actual proportion of land under 
cultivation amounts to only 43 per cent, thus leaving considerably more 
than half in “God’s own holding,” or, at the most, utilized as wild 
pasturage. 
The following list summarizes the Caza Mayor , or big game of Spain: 
to wit, (1) Red deer, (2) Roe, and (3) Fallow deer; (4) Ibex, and (5) 
Chamois; (6) Wild boar, and (7) Brown bear; (8) Wolf, and (9) Lynx — 
the last named being, by Spanish sporting ethics, accounted as Caza 
Mayor only when killed by a rifle -ball, a distinction which that feline shares 
with the fox. The latter, not being hunted in Spain (save only by the 
Calpe Hounds at Gibraltar), is regarded as a legitimate mark; in practice, 
however, it is rarely worth the risk of turning back a more valuable quarry 
to fire at a fox. 
Other wild animals shall not here be passed over unnamed. In no sense 
are they “ game ”; yet none the less interesting for that reason, and, in 
some instances, even more difficult to secure. We refer to such creatures as 
genet and mongoose, wild- cat, marten, polecat, badger, otter, etc. These 
in Spanish are collectively denominated Alimanas , and form, perhaps, 
objects of interest rather to the naturalist than the sportsman— two 
characters which year by year are more rarely combined. To our 
own study and pursuit of these wary creatures we have devoted a special 
chapter in our work, “ Unexplored Spain,”* and we must leave them at 
that. 
One omission in the above category of Spanish big game may strike 
the reader as curious and inexplicable. We refer to wild sheep. That genus 
is well represented in neighbouring lands — in Morocco by the handsome and 
heavily-maned Aoudad or Barbary Sheep; in Corsica and Sardinia by the 
Moufflon. Yet the whole long intermediate coast -line of Spain — mostly 
mountainous and for hundreds of miles exactly adapted to ovine 
requirements — is sheepless. Nor are there extant records or traditions 
of wild sheep having ever occupied those sierras, at least within recent 
centuries. 
The Spanish ibex, on the other hand, has, or had, a wide extension in the 
Peninsula, ranging from Pyrenees to Mediterranean. 
To this splendid game-animal, the Spanish ibex, we allot place of honour 
in our list, not only because he represents the supreme prize in Spain to 
the cragsman-hunter, but also by virtue of the species being peculiar to the 
* Unexplored Spain, by Abel Chapman and Walter Buck, British Vice-Consul at Jerez. (London, 1910.) 
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