[38] Immediately adjoining the south approach to the bridge over the Alagón is sculptured on the bluff a heraldic device representing a figure plucking a pomegranate (Granada) from a tree—the arms of Granadilla. There is an inscription, with date, beneath; but these we failed to decipher.
[39] Diccionario geografico, estadistico, y historico de España, by Pascual Madoz (Madrid, 1845).
[40] A later Spanish work, the Diccionario enciclopedico hispano-americano (Barcelona, 1892), regards some of Pascual Madoz’s descriptions as over-coloured and exaggerated. Our own observation, however, rather tended to confirm his views and to show that subsequent amelioration exists rather in name than in fact.
[41] The Hurdanos, we were told, make bad soldiers. Being despised by their comrades, they are only employed on the menial work of the barracks. Many, from long desuetude, are unable to wear boots.
[42] The white on a bustard’s plumage exceeds in its intensity that of almost any other bird we know. It is a dead white, without shade or the least symptom of any second tint so usual a feature in white.
[43] Avetarda is old Spanish, the modern spelling being Abutarda.
[44] A large number of horsemen inevitably excites suspicion in game unaccustomed to see more than three or four men together.
[45] The horses, if ground permits, may be utilised as “stops” to extreme right and left of the drive, otherwise they must be concealed in some convenient hollow in charge of a boy or two.
[46] We know of no other bird that increases thus in weight anticipatory of the breeding-season, nor are we at all sure that it is the swollen neck that explains that increase.
[47] We have never succeeded in inducing our tame bustards to breed in captivity.