CHAPTER XVII.
FURTHER EXPERIENCES WITH EAGLES AND VULTURES.
II.—Chiefly relating to the Sierra.
On a hot May morning we lay beneath the shade of palms and eucalypti in the garden at Jerez, watching the gyrations of Kestrels, Swifts, and Bee-eaters, and lazily listening to the soft bird-chorus—an infinite, space-filling refrain from myriad Nightingales, Serins, and Gold-finches—to the spondee of Hoopoe and dactyl of Quail. Presently there appeared, far overhead, some half-dozen Griffon Vultures wheeling in immense circles, the huge birds dwarfed by the altitude to mere specks. Then another stratum, still higher, was detected, and afterwards a keen eye distinguished a third, and then a fourth, beyond the average range of human vision. How many more tiers of soaring vultures might yet occupy the regions of unseen space beyond, cannot be told: but the incident serves to illustrate the system on which Nature's great scavengers patrol the land. The lower strata we estimated at 800 to 1,000 yards altitude, and these only, it is probable, are on active service, the upper tiers merely standing by, ready to profit by the discoveries of all the working parties that may be in sight beneath them: for at the enormous elevations of the uppermost birds, it is impossible to suppose that even a vulture's eye could detect so small an object as, say, a dead goat on the earth.
There is something peculiarly impressive in the appearance of these colossal birds and in the automaton-like ease of their flight. Ponderous bodies appear suspended in mid-air without visible effort or exertion—the great square wings extended, rigid and motionless, filled with air like the wands of a wind-mill, enable them to rest on space, to soar for hours, as it were, by mere volition. How all the vultures manage to find subsistence is a problem, for even in Spain the earth is not strewn with carcases, as on a battle-field.
Towards a certain point of the evergreen plain of palmetto, there is a visible concentration of soaring forms: thither a string of creaking carros has conveyed to their last resting-place some dead horses, the victims of Sunday's bull-fight. Thither flock the vultures to hold high carnival: and a striking sight it is to watch perhaps forty or fifty, as they soar and wheel in as many opposing, concentric circles, gradually focussing themselves over the point of attraction. But as they fold their wings and gather in a seething mass around the carrion, all that was majestic and imposing disappears—as they tear open the flanks and, with spluttering growls and gurgles, and flapping of huge wings, dive their great bare necks into the innermost penetralia, the spectacle changes to the repulsive. Yet, as the only existing system of scavengers, they are performing a useful office. Quickly swells the crowd: from every quarter come more and more—the heavens seem alive with hurrying forms sweeping down to the banquet. As the earlier arrivals become satiated, they withdraw a few yards from the revels to enjoy the state of rare repletion, perched on a neighbouring tree or hillock, where they sit with distended crop, fluffed-out feathers and half-closed wings, gorged to the last mouthful, but making room for fresh comers, hungry as they had been before. Thus within a few hours the luckless horses have found a tomb, and when the Griffons have left nothing but bare bones, then another feathered scavenger appears, the Neophron, or in Spanish Quebranta-huesos, i.e., the bone-smasher, who sets diligently to work to loosen the ligaments and tear the skeleton asunder. Then, one by one, the bones are carried off and broken by being dropped from a height upon the rocks, when the fragments are devoured: thus the earth is cleansed of corrupting matter.
Vultures, though found all over Spain—whether in mountain, marsh, or plain—breed only in the sierras. We have observed them in every province from Guipúzcoa to Galicia, and from Asturias to Mediterranean; but nowhere do they so greatly abound as in Andalucia, and especially in that wild mountain-region which forms the southernmost apex of Europe. Here they may fairly be said to swarm, and in our many campaigns in these sierras we have had abundant opportunities of observing them "at home." Here the Griffon Vultures build their broad flat nests on shelves and ledges of the crags, or in caves in the face of sheer walls of rock, many of which exceed 2,000 feet in vertical altitude. The little town of Grazalema is perched on the verge of one of these stupendous tajos; from the window of the posada one can drop a pebble to invisible depths, midway down which a colony of Buitres have had their eyries from time immemorial. The hill-villages of Arcos, El Bosque, Villa Martin, and Bornos, all present similar instances—man seeking the highest apex, the vultures its middle heights, beyond reach of bullet from above or below. Ronda, too, has its tajo, but we do not recollect seeing any vultures breeding actually beneath the town.
The Griffons commence repairing their nests as early as January—we have watched them carrying claw-fulls of grass and cut branches from places where charcoal-burners had been lopping the trees, on January 21st; a single large white egg is laid in February, incubation lasts forty days, and a naked, blue-skinned chick is hatched early in April. The young vultures are of extremely slow growth, spending full three months in the nest. By mid-May they are as big as Guinea-fowls: ungainly-looking creatures, all crop and maw, with feathers beginning to show through the thick white down.