Since the time of those earlier efforts to scrape an acquaintance with the Lammergeyer (some of which form the subject of the last chapter), we have at length enjoyed opportunities of observing this grand bird in its true home, and here add a short summary of these later experiences.

Broadly speaking, this bird may be said to exist in all the higher mountain regions of Spain; but, as a rule, in small and decreasing numbers. In the north, there are eyries in GuipÚzcoa and Navarre, one or two within sight of the French frontier; others in the Cordilleras of Leon and the Asturias—the magnificent gorge known as the Desfiladero de la Deva, being an immemorial haunt. We have observed them in the great central sierras of Castile, and they are known (but probably do not breed) in the Guadarrama range, within sight of Madrid. Nowhere common, there are yet more sporadic pairs to be seen sweeping low on the steep brown mountain-sides of certain Andalucian and Estremenian sierras than anywhere else in Spain. Here, however, as elsewhere, their numbers are being yearly reduced by the deadly poison laid by hill-farmers for wolves, and, in some cases, expressly for the Lammergeyer itself; for, rightly or wrongly, the great bird bears an ill-repute, and being, moreover, during the breeding-season, of confiding disposition—more so than eagle or vulture—is easily killed at the nest.

The GypaËtus, like the noble eagles, is essentially a solitary bird, each pair (they remain paired for life) requiring a mountain region exclusively their own, and shunning the near propinquity of vultures and other large raptores. It is no doubt this trait of its character that explains its comparative absence from our "home" mountains round Ronda, and the failure of our search for it in that district; for the ramification of mountain-ranges which occupies that southernmost apex of Europe swarms with vultures, which crowd every crag and precipice in numbers quite unknown elsewhere. Such conditions are distasteful to the solitude-loving Lammergeyer.

Yet, while shunned as near neighbours, it appears certain that the vultures perform services of value to their nobler congener. Their office consists in stripping the skeleton of flesh, and leaving prepared for the "quebranta-huesos" (bone-smasher) his much preferred bonne-bouche of marrow-bones. Thus, while the respective haunts of the two species remain distinct, their hunting-areas must coincide.

The Lammergeyer disdains carrion; is never seen at those seething vulture-banquets which form so characteristic a spectacle in rural Spain; but he loves the bones, and his habit of carrying huge tibia and femora into the upper air, thence dropping them upon rocks, has been known since the days of Æschylus. Hence the fouler feeders are useful to him; he requires their assistance, but demands that they keep a respectful distance. His attitude towards the vultures may be compared with that of certain high-souled anthropoids of human affinity, who utilize their humbler neighbours and cut them dead next day!

Thus it happens that while in a range of sierra inhabited by Griffons, the Lammergeyer will not be found, yet a pair of the latter usually have their eyrie at no great distance from the vulture-colony.[60]

During our ibex-shooting campaigns among the Mediterranean sierras, we frequently fell in with this species.

Plate XXXV. LAMMERGEYER. A sketch from life in the Sierra Bermeja. Page 308.
Plate XXXV. LAMMERGEYER. A sketch from life in the Sierra Bermeja. Page 308.

It was almost the first bird seen in the Sierra Bermeja, where a superb adult passed slowly along our line, carrying what appeared to be a live snake in his claws, some four feet of writhing reptile dangling beneath. The Lammergeyer, by the way, like the eagle, carries everything in its claws, not in the beak. We were rather surprised at seeing this bird here, the local hunters having specially assured us that only "aguilas reales" bred in that sierra. This name, however, proved to be that here applied to the Lammergeyer; its proper recipient, the Golden Eagle (a pair of which were nesting in a crag not far off) being known as "aguila negra."

Vultures, it may be mentioned, were chiefly remarkable by their absence in these mountains—one only saw a solitary Griffon at long intervals, and in that barren rocky-mountain region (afterwards mentioned), in which we found the Lammergeyer most numerous, vultures were seldom seen. Yet Buiteras, "Griffonries," so to speak, existed at certain intervals, say, six or eight leagues apart, throughout the whole of those sierras.

This pair of Lammergeyers, which we enjoyed watching during some days, soon disclosed to us both the position of their present abode and also that of a former year, entering the latter crag almost as often as the then tenanted nursery.

Perched, as we were, a thousand feet above, it was a glorious ornithological spectacle to watch these grand birds sailing to and fro unsuspicious and unconscious of our presence, their lavender backs and outstretched pinions gleaming like silver in the sunshine. Slowly they would glide down the gorge till lost to sight around an angle; returning half an hour later, and passing beneath our post, would circle for a minute or two round the rock-stack. Not a motion of those rigid pinions till close to the mouth of the eyrie, then the great wings closed, and the bird disappeared within its cave.

Both eyries were situate in similar positions—in abrupt stacks of rock which protruded from the rugged mountain slope, but both quite low down, almost at the bottom of the 3,000-foot gorge across which the two nests faced each other. The Lammergeyer, we have now ascertained, does not breed, as we had expected, in those more stupendous precipices beloved of Aquila bonelli, and whose height dwarfs even an eagle to the similitude of the homely kestrel; but rather, either in rock-stacks such as those (often not 100 feet high) which flank the lower gargantas, or corries of the sierra, or in those generally loftier crags which often belt the base of each individual mountain.

The actual site of the nest is a small cave—rather than a crevice—and a huge mass of material, the accumulation of years, usually covers the whole floor. In one case, not less than a cart-load of sticks, branches, and twigs of cistus and heath had been collected, covering a circular space some six feet in diameter by two in depth. The present nest was hardly so large, and was completed with dead vine-branches, the prunings of the previous autumn;—and contained, besides an old alparagata, or hempen sandal, several cows' hoofs, and the dried leg and foot of a wild-goat. There was, however, no carrion about, nor any very offensive smell, such as would have characterized the home of a vulture.

To an outsider, the feat of scaling even a 100-foot crag, when fairly sheer, seems no easy undertaking; but our two mountain-bred lads made light work of it, one escalading the Lammergeyer's fortress from below, the other from above (which proved the easier way), and actually meeting in the eyrie. Some goatherds, hearing of our wish to secure a "quebranta-huesos," had removed the single young bird an hour or two previously. This grotesque and most uncouth fledgeling was then (at end of March) about the size of a turkey, covered with grey-white down, and with beak and crop so disproportionately heavy that a recumbent position appeared almost a necessity. The youngster kept up a constant querulous whistle when visited, and consumed, we were told, four pounds of meat daily. A month later the feathers were beginning to show through the down, and the daily consumption of meat had doubled.

In a remote region of the Sierra Nevada, during the spring of 1891, the writer visited several eyries of the Lammergeyer—each nest, in construction and situation, resembling those already described, but the season (April) was too late to secure eggs, this species breeding very early—in January. The young—usually only one, though two eggs are often laid—at this season were about one-third feathered. These nests were in the midst of a peculiarly barren and rocky district of the great Eastern Sierras, the precise locality of which it may be as well to leave unwritten. Two of the eyries were in low belts of protruding rock which broke the steep slope of the sierra, a third in a detached crag about 150 feet in height. The latter, however, was easily accessible (by rope) from above. The Lammergeyer, when breeding, is less cautious than eagle or vulture, sitting close, even while preparations for an assault on its stronghold are being made close at hand.

The adults measure from 8 feet 6 inches to 9 feet in expanse of wing, and the wedge-shaped white head with its bristly beard and scarlet eyelids, its cat-like irides, and the black bands that pass through the eye, give the bird a peculiarly ferocious aspect. When on the wing, as Prince Rudolph remarks, these features, together with the long rigid wings, cuneate tail, and the mixture of hoary grey, black, and bright yellow in its plumage, distinguish the GypaËtus at a glance from any other living creature, and lend it a strange, almost a dragon-like appearance.

Its claws, though less acutely hooked than those of the eagle, are sharp and powerful weapons—quite different to the worn and blunted claws of vultures, though the central toe in both is much longer than the two outside ones.

The industry of the peasantry of these wild regions of Nevada deserves a passing remark. As high as rye or other crops will grow, almost every foot of available ground is brought under cultivation. Precipitous, stony slopes are terraced with a perseverance that rivals, though on a smaller scale, the vineyards of Alto Douro, elsewhere described. Scanning the heights with a field-glass, one descries a man working on some jutting point or tiny patch of tillage so steep that a stone would hardly lie. All these folk, towards nightfall, betake themselves to the quaint but unsavoury hamlets that hang on some ridge of the sierra—and not the human folk only, but the pigs, the goats, and the donkeys forbye—each beast making straight for its own abode. Along each rock-paved street at dusk they come at a run, looking neither to right nor left till each beast bolts, without ceremony, into its own abode. Some five-and-twenty of the larger "domestic" animals (I take no count of dogs, hens, or the like) shared with me and sundry natives our scanty lodgment, whence at earliest dawn the braying of asses, cock-crowing, and porcine squalls, drove us betimes of a morning.

OUR QUARTERS AT QUENTAR DEL RIO.
OUR QUARTERS AT QUENTAR DEL RIO.

In one hill-village, there being no posada, we put up in the outhouse of a mill: but, amidst sacks of grain and malodorous mules, we passed a lively evening, for one by one the serranos dropped in to chat with the "InglÉses"; the wine-skin was replenished, and Manuel struck up some snatches of "Don Rodrigo de Bivar" and songs of the ancient chivalry. Maiden figures soon flitted in the darkness outside, and coyly accepting an invitation to enter, our barn resounded with the music of castanet and guitar, while lissom forms and light fandango graced its erewhiles unlovely floor.

Next morning our guide, Manolo Osorio Garcia, was drunk—a most unusual thing in Spain! We left him to sleep off his borachera, and were glad to get rid of him, for—again, most unusual—he was constantly pestering not only for wine, but for boots, gunpowder, and other things—requests that, when luggage is reduced to a minimum, cannot be conveniently complied with.

Despite their industry there is, nevertheless, woful poverty amid the peasants of Nevada. Whole tribes live in caves and excavations in the mountain-sides—filthy holes, shared, of course, by the beasts, and devoid of the remotest approach to comfort or decency. Even in the larger villages the ordinary sanitary precautions are utterly neglected, disease is frequent, and death sweeps in broad swathes. Early one morning Manuel came in to tell us that in the hamlet, at which we had arrived the previous night, "the people were dying by dozens each day of small-pox, that ten children had already succumbed that morning, and that he was very ill himself." We accordingly left at once, meeting in the pass above the village a drove of several hundred black pigs. Our horses planted their feet firmly on the rocks, and for some minutes we stood encompassed in a torrent of swine, which raced and jostled beneath us.

In Spain the GypaËtus is yearly decreasing in numbers. A decade ago they were fairly numerous in the vast area of rock mountains which stretches between Granada and Jaen. To-day a week may be spent in that district without so much as even a distant view of this grand bird. The reason is unquestionably the use of poison (veneno), which is laid out broadcast by the goatherds for the special benefit of wolves, but which is equally fatal to the Lammergeyer.

Wolves, by the way, during the severe winter of 1890-1, were particularly numerous and destructive in the Sierra Nevada, descending to lower levels than usual, demolishing whole flocks, and even attacking human beings when found alone. In one instance all that could be found of a poor goatherd, who had been missing for some weeks, was his boots!

This brings us again to the question of the habits of the GypaËtus, and especially of its food. Some naturalists seem inclined to hold that the bird is only a vulture, subsisting on carrion, and fearing to attack any living prey. The goatherds of Nevada, however (rightly or wrongly), do not share this view. One kindly old hill-farmer, at whose lonely cottage we spent a couple of nights, assured us that the "quebrantones," as he called them, were as destructive to his new-born kids in spring-time as the wolves themselves, and added that he laid out the veneno in special spots for each of his enemies. Only three days before, he asserted with vehement emphasis, he had witnessed a Lammergeyer strike down a week-old kid, its mate meanwhile driving off the dam. So intent was the bird on demolishing its victim that the farmer approached within a few yards and threw his stick at it as it rose. The kid, however, was dead. He insisted that the robber was no Golden Eagle (which he knew well), but "de los Barbudos malditos!"—one of those accursed bearded fellows!

Again, on a single majada, or goat-breeding establishment, in Estremadura, we were told that forty odd kids had been killed that spring by one pair of Lammergeyers before the enraged tenant was able to shoot them. We saw one of the birds—a superb adult GypaËtus.

Here also is the evidence of the veteran cazador, Manuel de la Torre, a man of keen observation and intelligence, and the best field-naturalist we have met in Spain: "The Lammergeyer seeks far and wide for prey, preferring bones to anything else, but also eating carrion on necessity; and in spring, when it has young, kills many young sheep and goats, both wild and tame. I have seen it take snakes and other reptiles, and the largest and finest I ever shot (now in Madrid Museum) was in the act of eating a rabbit I had just seen it kill. This was in the Pardo. A dead hare or rabbit is the best bait to attract the GypaËtus to the gun; it regularly hunts both. The Neophron I have never seen take any living thing; it only eats carrion, garbage, and offal, but I have found dead snakes in its nests. The GypaËtus, like the vultures and some eagles, feed their young for some months on half-digested food, disgorged from their own crops." This is the evidence of one who has seen more of the Lammergeyer than any other living naturalist, and it is for this reason that, contrary to our practice, we have accepted what may be called hearsay evidence.

It is for these reasons that we have retained the distinctive title of Lammergeyer, now generally discarded in favour—on mistaken grounds, we think—of the name of "Bearded Vulture." Independently of the fact that our subject is no more a vulture than it is an eagle, surely a distinctive name is preferable to further iteration of the wearisome monotony—ay, poverty—of ornithological nomenclature. Have we not run to death those compound epithets, "long-legged," "black-tailed," "white-shouldered," and the like? Even on the assumption—not proven in this case—that the word conveys an inference not strictly accurate, there are precedents for its retention, e.g., Caprimulgus, Goatsucker, Nycticorax, Bernicla, the Bernacle Goose, Oyster-catcher, and many more. We hesitate to accept such substitutes as Tures and Bearded Vulture for the time-honoured designations of Ibex and Lammergeyer.