Fortune favoured. Half an hour afterwards, a second stag followed. This time a gentle rustle in the bush, and one clink of a hoof on rock had caught my faulty ear. Then coroneted antlers showed up from the depths below, and so soon as the great brown body came in view, a bullet on the shoulder at short range dropped him dead. This was an average stag, weighing 255 lbs. clean, but although “royal,” carried a smaller head than that first seen. Later, two other big stags descended together into the unseen depths on my front, but whither they subsequently took their course—quien sabe? I saw them no more.
The only other animal that crossed my line during the day was a mongoose, but objects of interest never lacked. Close behind my post, a huge stick-built nest filled a small ilex. This was the ancestral abode of a pair of griffons, and its owners were already busy renewing their home, though my presence sadly disconcerted them. Hereabouts these vultures breed regularly on trees, a most unusual habit, due presumably to the lack of suitable crags which elsewhere form their invariable nesting-site. Cushats and robins lent an air of familiarity to the scene, while azure-winged magpies—a species peculiarly Spanish—hopped and chattered hard by, curiosity overcoming fear. There were also pretty Sardinian warblers, with long tails and a white nuchal spot like a coal-tit. Other birds seen in this sierra include merlin and kestrel, green woodpecker, jay, blackbird, thrush, redwing, woodlark, and chaffinch; and on off-days we shot a few red-legged partridges.
The two packs employed to-day numbered forty—twenty-four big and sixteen small podencos, all yellow and white, the larger having a cross of mastiff. That evening two of the best in the pack were missing—“Capitan,” killed by a boar in the mancha; the other returned during the night, fearfully wounded, one foreleg almost severed.
The head-keeper told us that these podencos fear the he-wolf. They will run keenly on his scent, but never dare to close with him as they do with boar. Yet curiously they have been known to fraternise with the she-wolf, and in no case will they attack, but rather incline to caress her.
It was estimated by the drivers that eighty head of big-game (reses) were viewed to-day. Thirty-two shots were fired, but only my one stag was killed. Had the wind held steady, much better results were probable.[29] Included among the guests at Mezquitillas—and they represented rank and learning, arms, State, and Church—was a genial and imposing personality in the poet laureate of Spain, Sr. D. Antonio Cavestany, who celebrated this delightful if somewhat unlucky day in a series of graceful couplets. We are wholly unequal to translate, but copy two or three which readers who understand Spanish will appreciate:—
Del Poeta al arma no dieron
Las Musas mucha virtud:
Cuatro ciervos le salieron ...
Y los cuatro se le fueron
Rebosantes de salud!
Suya fue la culpa toda:
Con la escopeta homicida
Á apuntar no se acomoda ...
Si les dispara una oda
No escapa ni uno con vida!
Sin duda no plugo á Dios
Que del ganado cervuno
Fueran las Parcas en pos
Total; tiros, treinta y dos
Yvenados muertos, uno!!!