The ibex is strictly nocturnal in its habits, passing the day at rest, either on the snow-fields or amidst the most rugged and inaccessible ground within its reach, and only descending to lower levels to feed after sun-down. This habit never varies. In the more elevated cordilleras, where, even in summer, there remain great expanses of snow and glacier-ice, the wild goats retire at dawn to the heights, spending the day on some bare rock or among the crevices of crags islanded in the snow-field, and always guarded from danger of surprise by sentries, who hold watch and ward from some commanding point. Here, except sometimes during the hottest days of July and August, they are all but inaccessible—it is impossible to "turn their flank," for they have, behind them, vast breadths of snow impassable to man: while the vigilance of their sentries simply mocks the stalker—even if their position is not physically inexpugnable. The only systematic method employed by native hunters, at such times, is the unsatisfactory one of waiting, at dusk, to "cut them out" in the passes by which they are accustomed to descend to their feeding-grounds—a bitterly cold and most uncertain undertaking, to say nothing of its danger, for after sun-down the soft snow freezes into a solid ice-sheet, cutting off the hunter's retreat along the steep slope of the sierra.
The ibex of these higher sierras never descend to the level where pines, high brushwood, or indeed any covert can grow. Their home is on the snow and rock, and they only descend as far as that zone of moss, heath, and stunted alpine vegetation which intervenes between the snow-line and the highest levels of conifer or tree-growth. Their food consists of the bloom and shoots of various alpine shrubs, grasses and flowers—the Spanish gorse, broom, rosemary, and piorno, as well as certain narcissi, mountain-berries, and the peasants' scant crops of rye-grass. For this latter luxury they are tempted to come down rather lower: but under no circumstances, not even in winter, are the ibex of Gredos or Nevada found in the forests or amongst covert of any kind.
Such, in outline, are the habits of the ibex of the higher sierras. But ibex also exist on mountain-ranges of much lesser elevations, and there their habits differ widely. Some of these lower hills are covered with brushwood to their very crests—one has pines on its summit, at 4,800 feet. Here the ibex cannot, of course, disdain the shelter of the scrub, and even frequent the forests at much lower elevations. We have hunted them in ground that looked far more suitable for roe-deer, and have even seen the "rootings" of pig overlapping the feeding-grounds of the goats.
In such situations, the ibex form regular "lairs" amidst the fastnesses of broom, gorse and thorny abolága, on the bloom of which they browse by night, without having to descend or to shift their quarters at all. On these lower hills the ibex owe their safety—and survival—exclusively to the rough and intercepted nature of the ground, over-grown for miles with forest and matted brushwood; and, in some degree, to their own comparatively small numbers.[31]
A third very distinct habitat we have described in detail elsewhere. Here, on an isolated mountain, detached from the adjoining sierras, and affording neither the refuge of snow-fields nor jungle, the mother-wit of a segregated band of ibex managed to discover a sanctuary scarcely less secure. As elsewhere described, they simply shut the door on pursuit by betaking themselves into the clefts and crannies of a hanging rock-wall some three miles long and 2,000 feet high. To these eagle's eyries no other terrestrial being could follow, nor human power dislodge the astute montéses, whose beards, for all we know, were shaking with laughter as they gazed down upon their discomfited enemies.
In this case, the ibex may almost be said to have "gone to ground"; for they actually sought shelter, when hard pressed, in the caves and ravines with which the face of these precipices were serried. This seems opposed to all one's ideas of what ought to be the habits of a wild goat; but it well illustrates the pre-eminently astute nature of the animal.
Were it otherwise—were it not for this reasoning sagacity in utilizing the natural resources of each locality—in short, adapting their habits to the necessities of the case, the existence of these isolated colonies of ibex, on limited terrain, would be impossible. Even as it is, their survival is, we fear, in some cases, only a question of years, for the tiradores of the sierra hunt them in season and out. The serrano hunts rather for the pot than for sport, and spares neither sex nor age. With all his sportsman-like qualities and skill in his craft, our friend is not truly a sportsman. He is, we fear, but a butcher at heart; meat is what he seeks; to him a female is only a less desirable quarry than her lord in the ratio of her smaller weight—about one-fourth less. It is the same with everything; with partridge, a covey at a shot, as they run up in file to the traitor reclamo; with bustard, to massacre a pair as they stoop to drink at a water-hole in the thirsty summer days; with trout, to decimate a river by poisoning the streams, tipping in a cart-load of quicklime, or blowing up a pool by dynamite—such are the cherished objects of our friend, the Spanish cazador; and yet, despite it all, we like him, and are never happier than during the hours we spend in his company around the camp-fire.