It is for these reasons that we have retained the distinctive title of Lammergeyer, now generally discarded in favour—on mistaken grounds, we think—of the name of "Bearded Vulture." Independently of the fact that our subject is no more a vulture than it is an eagle, surely a distinctive name is preferable to further iteration of the wearisome monotony—ay, poverty—of ornithological nomenclature. Have we not run to death those compound epithets, "long-legged," "black-tailed," "white-shouldered," and the like? Even on the assumption—not proven in this case—that the word conveys an inference not strictly accurate, there are precedents for its retention, e.g., Caprimulgus, Goatsucker, Nycticorax, Bernicla, the Bernacle Goose, Oyster-catcher, and many more. We hesitate to accept such substitutes as Tures and Bearded Vulture for the time-honoured designations of Ibex and Lammergeyer.
CHAPTER XXVII.
RAMON AND THE TWO BIG RAMS.
AN INCIDENT OF IBEX-STALKING.
For more than an hour we had been lying expectant, Ramon and I. Our position was in a tumble of rocks, which commanded the approach to a pass—a little portillo, the only one by which the beetling crags above were surmountable, even to an ibex. The pass was a narrow cleft or fissure, traversing transversely the whole height of the crags, whose sheer dolomite precipices otherwise presented an utterly unscaleable face. Our post was a favourable one, hence it was with a tinge of disappointment that we observed the appearance of one of our drivers on the heights of the opposite sky-line.
Ramon lay just in front of me on the narrow shelving ledge, his head considerably lower than his feet, his lithe body entwined around a projecting rock-buttress, while his keen eye surveyed everything that moved in the panorama of wild rock-chaos beneath. During these hours of meditation I began more clearly to understand one, at least, of the raisons d'être for that remarkable acuteness of smell which is attributed to the ibex. The ibex-hunters invariably assured us that the goats relied more on their sense of smell than on that of sight—"they have more nose than eyes—mas nariz que ojos," in Spanish phrase. This, I now realized, was not, after all, so inexplicable, for the skin-clad hunter before me was decidedly aromatic. It became easy of comprehension that his presence might be more readily perceptible to the nose than to the eyes; for, while Ramon's serpentine form, curving round a rock-angle, and appearing to fit into its sinuosities, was all but invisible, his whereabouts, even to human olfactory organs, might probably be detected at a considerable distance. No wonder the native hunter is careful to keep always under the lee of the breeze.
"Do you see where Guarro is now?" presently remarked Ramon, "crossing the ridge below the glacier-foot." After scanning for some minutes every inch of the spot indicated with a strong field-glass, I made out at length a minute moving dot that might be our friend Guarro y Guarro, the ruddy-faced goatherd, who was in charge of the batida.[61] "Well, that is where I shot the first of the two big machos on Thursday—the other on these broken pinnacles lower down on the right." To kill two first-rate males, single-handed, in a day was no small feat, and Ramon's tale of the achievement was an interesting sporting episode.
"I was attending my goats," he said, "in the Arroyo del Cerradillo, the ravine above where we shot the small macho yesterday; and as I came within sight of the high crags at its summit, I crept carefully forward, 'speering' round the rocks to see if any ibex chanced to be in them. They are a favourite haunt of the goats during the day, and as there are some large males on that side, it is always worth while to be prepared and cautious. That morning there were two—both large ibex, with very long horns, as long as a man's arms. They were at first walking away, but soon lay down on a ledge where it was possible to crawl to within fifty or sixty yards of them. Unfortunately, part of the stalk was through soft snow, and, in consequence, the gun missed fire."
Ramon's gun, by the way, was an exceptionally rickety old weapon, with many signs of rude repairs, and bore on its single barrel, counter-sunk in golden letters, the inscription "Plasencia, 1841." No doubt it owed the Imperial exchequer of Spain something like fifty pounds sterling in respect of license duty during half a century, not one centime of which is ever likely to find its way into the Spanish Treasury.