The contingency of pigs being worse off than ourselves had not previously occurred to us. Thus ended, in a cycle of catastrophe, our first wrestle with _Capra hispánica_ in Moréna; but initial failure only served to stimulate further efforts later on. Winter, moreover, is no season for camping in these high sierras; May is more favourable, but the early autumn is best of all.
At this period (1901) the surviving ibex had fallen to a mere handful. Fortunately here, as elsewhere in Spain, there was aroused, within the next five years, the tardy interest of Spanish landowners to save them.
(A) SIERRA DE GRÉDOS--MADRIGAL DE LA VERA.
Length 26-1/2 in. Circum. 10-1/8 in. Tips, 22-1/8 in.
Length 29-3/4 in. Circum. 8-1/8 in. Tips, 20-7/8 in.
The owner of the sierras above mentioned (the Marquis del Mérito) has favoured us with latest details respecting both the ibex and other wild beasts therein.
The wild-goat (he writes) is the most difficult of all game to shoot, proof of which is afforded by the fact that in the lands which I hold in the Sierra Quintána (although until recent years these were unpreserved and in the neighbourhood of a village where every man was a hunter) yet the local shooters had not succeeded in exterminating the species. Its means of defence, over and above its keen sight and scent, consist chiefly in the inaccessible natural caves of those mountains, in which the wild-goats invariably seek refuge the moment they find themselves pursued. In these caves the goats were accustomed to pass the entire day, never coming out to feed except during the night.
To-day (since free shooting has ceased) they begin to show up a little during daylight, and in other ways demonstrate a returning confidence. Nevertheless they display not the slightest inclination to abandon their old tendency to betake themselves, immediately on the appearance of danger, to the vast crags and precipices which lie towards the east of the sierra, and which crags afford them almost complete security. The most effective method of securing a specimen to-day is, as you know, by stalking (_resécho_). For this animal, when it finds itself suddenly surprised by a human being, is less startled than deer, or other game, and usually allows sufficient time for careful aim to be taken--indeed, it seems to be the more alarmed when it has lost sight of the intruder.