To-day, several stags and a pig were killed, besides one roe-deer and an enormous wild-cat that scaled 7-3/4 kilos (over 17 lbs.).
Towards noon, the sun-heat in the gorge being intense, I had cautiously shifted my post to the banks of a mountain-burnlet that, embowered in oleanders,[30] gurgled hard by. In those glancing streams, while I sat motionless, a pair of water-shrews were also busied with their lunch--dipping and diving, turning over pebbles, and searching each nook and cranny of the crystal pool. Lovely little creatures they were--velvety black with snow-white undersides, which showed conspicuously on either flank; but the curious feature was the silver sheen caused by infinite air-bubbles that still adhered to the fur while they swam beneath the surface. They recalled a similar scene in an elk-forest of distant Norway; but never in Spanish sierras have we noticed water-shrews except on this occasion. While yet watching the water-fairies, another movement caught the corner of one eye; with slow sedate steps, a grey wild-cat was descending the opposite slope. She saw nothing, yet the foresight of the ·303 carbine was recusant, it declined to get down into the nick, and a miss resulted. But what a bound the feline gave as an expanding bullet (at 2000 feet a second velocity) shattered the sierra half an inch above her back!
An incident occurred near this point (though in another year) with a stag. Two shots had been fired on the left, when the slightest sound behind and above inspired a prepared glance in that direction--and only just in time, for three seconds later a glorious pair of antlers showed up on the nearest bush-clad height, and the easiest of shots yielded a 35-inch trophy.
The annexed drawing shows a 14-pointer, which was killed here the following year by our host, Sr. Don Juan Calvo de León of Mezquitillas. In mere inches the measurements may be surpassed by others, but no head that we have seen excels this in extraordinary boldness of curve and symmetry of form. This stag was shot on the Puntales del Peco, January 17, 1908, and in the same beat Sr. Juan Calvo, Junr., secured another fine 14-pointer, as below:--
+-----+-------+-------+------------+--------------+----------------+ | |Points.|Length.|Widest Tips.|Widest Inside.|Circ. above Bez.| +-----+-------+-------+------------+--------------+----------------+ |No. 1| 14 |38-3/4"| 39-1/4" | 33-1/4" | 6-1/4" | |No. 2| 14 |36-1/4"| ... | 25-3/4" | ... | +-----+-------+-------+------------+--------------+----------------+