There were small trout in the Monachil; but in Genil and Dilar (which latter springs from the alpine Laguna de las Yeguas just under the Picácho de la Veleta) trout ran up to a quarter-pound or thereby: the method of capture is dynamite.
Ibex at this season (May) frequent the southern slopes of the main chain—looking down upon the Alpuxarras—a favourite resort being the wild rocks of Alcazába, east of Mulahacen; but in summer they are distributed along the whole of the “high tops” and are still maintaining their numbers as usual.
We had cherished the hope of meeting with ptarmigan and other alpine forms in these high sierras, especially during our earlier expeditions after ibex. We are satisfied that ptarmigan at least do not exist, having seen no trace of them at any point; but we never saw the snow-finch either, and it is reported to exist in numbers.
Oh! the wearying monotony of that long down-grade ride—the infinity of vast subrounded mountains, all alike, all ugly, all sprinkled rather than clad with low gorse and spiky broom, like millions of pincushions with all points outwards. Then the shale—the very earth seemed disintegrated. Red shale and blue, cinder-grey and lemon-yellow; some schistose and sparkling, the bulk dull and dead. Here and there, amid oceans of friable detritus, stand out great rocks of more durable substance—solitary pinnacles, towers and turrets of fantastic form. Six hours of this ere we reach the Vega of Granada.
Ornithology
For ornithologists the following notes on birds observed and not already mentioned may here be inserted:—
Blue and Rock-thrushes.—Neither abundant, but the former most so in the rock-gorges of lower Monachil, nesting in “pot-holes” and horizontal crevices of the crags. The rock-thrush is more alpine and confined (here as elsewhere) exclusively to the higher sierra.
Missel-thrushes among ilex-trees at 7000 feet, apparently nesting: a few woodchats observed at same points.
Blackstart.—Plentiful, though less so than on San Cristobal in Sierra de Jerez (5000 feet). A nest in the crag over-hanging our bathing-place in the burn at San Gerónimo contained five eggs on April 28. We found others on Monachil, and grey wagtails were also breeding at both places.