Part 40 (1/2)

Ten foxes (_Vulpes13-3/4, 14, 15 16-1/2, 16-1/2, 17 lbs; four fe 11, 11-3/4, 13-1/2, 14 lbs

Besides ”small deer,” such as rats andof a whole red-stag and a whole wild-boar!

[POSTSCRIPT]

_March 2, 1907_--_Chillando_ this evening at the Oyillos del Tio Juan Roque, a big grey soith nu up to within a few yards--whether to devour the supposed rabbit orthe situation, she turned and dashed off with an indignant snort, followed by her striped brood, but did not go far before stopping (like Lot's wife) to listen and look back

Later, at the Sabinal, just upon dusk, a fox appeared about 120 yards away, doind Though quite aware of our presence, both by scent and sight, he deliberately sat down on his haunches to watch; but no charm of the _chillar_ would induce a nearer approach, and a rifle-ball whistling within an inch or two of his ears broke the spell

On May 16, 1910, a oose responded with unusual alacrity to the first ”call,” running up within twenty yards This was an adult hed 8-1/2 lbs

We have endeavoured to rear so wild-cats are by far the e fury, quite unamenable to civilisation The lynx at least affects a measure of subjection, but remains always unreliable and treacherous in spirit The story of how one of our tame lynxes attacked and nearly killed a poor _lavandera_ is told in _Wild Spain_, p 447

CHAPTER xxxV

OUR ”HOME-MOUNTAINS”

THE SERRANiA DE RONDA

I SAN CRISTOBAL AND THE _PINSaPO_ REGION

Thiseastern extension of the Sierra Nevada Except at the ”Ultimo Suspiro del Moro” there is no actual break, and both in physical features and in fauna the two ranges coincide, while differing essentially frohbour on the north The Serrania de Ronda, nevertheless, displays distinctive characters which entitle it to a place in this book; it for within a thirty-mile ride eastward of Jerez

[Illustration: PINSaPO PINE]

The outstanding feature is the _massif_--or, in Spanish, _Nucleo Central_--of San Cristobal, which rises to 5800 feet, and stands head and shoulders above its surrounding satellites, an irey rock and perpendicular precipice[57]

Nestling beneath its western bastions lies the Moorish hamlet of Benamahoma, whence, housed in friendly quarters, we have oft explored this hill The route to the summit (which may almost be reached on donkey-back) is by the southern face; for summits, however, merely as such, we have no sort of affection, and never expend one ounce of energy in gaining them, unless they chance to aid a main objective As to ”viee are sure to enjoy these from other points quite as effective

New-fallen snodered the ground andpeaks as we rode out of Benaht, and frorey head, triple banded Serins and kitty-wrens sang fro-tailed tits, with cirl-buntings and woodlarks A grey wagtail by the burnside was already acquiring the black throat of spring

[Illustration: ROCK-BUNTING (_Eh sporadic cultivation--the angles at which these hill-row on slopes where no ordinary biped could maintain a foothold The industry of mountaineers (here as elsewhere in Spain) is remarkable Each tillable patch, however small or abrupt, is reduced to service, its million stones removed and utilised to for-floor (like a shelf on the hillside), whereon the hard-won crop is threshed with flails Higher out on the hills rude stone sheilings are erected to serve as shelters during seed-tiher tussle with nature to wrest her fruits from the earth

Presently one enters forests of oak and ilex with strange misshapen trunks, stunted and hollow, but decorated with prehensile convolvulus and mistletoe--many three-fourths dead,tufts of ferns Here, instead of destroying the whole tree, charcoal-burners pollard and lop; huge lateral li centuries, produces these ht and surmounted by a delicate superstructure of branches totally disproportionate No more fantastic for, as it were, with death, yet still able to transmit life to the superstruction above They recall the Baobab trees of Central Africa In neither case is the effect absolutely displeasing, albeit grotesque

Both ured

On rounding the northern shoulder of the es Instead of lie of the pinsapo pine--a forestconspicuously new And new indeed it is

For the range of this great Spanish pine (_Abies pinsapo_) is limited not e, the Serrania de Ronda--there may exist more remarkable examples of a restricted distribution, but none certainly that we have come across

The pinsapo, moreover, affects even here but three spots: first, San Cristobal itself; secondly, the Sierra de las Nieves, a mountain plainly visible some thirty miles to the eastward (all its northern corries darkened by pinsapos); and, lastly, the Sierra Bermeja on the Mediterranean, distant thirty to thirty-five rows in forests; on adjacent hills we have observed one or two scattered groups--otherwise this pine is found nowhere else on earth