Wild Spain Part 13

CHAPTER XV.

TROUTING IN THE ASTURIAS AND IN LEON.

The wide pastoral province of Leon, with its unexplored wilds of the Vierzo and the Maragateria, and many another savage region bordering on the southern slopes of the Galician and Cantabrian highlands, is practically a _terra incognita_ to British sportsman and naturalist.

Well would Leon repay either of these for the enterprise expended on its exploration. Mountain and plain afford shelter for game--large and small--of all the kinds native to Spain; while the rivers flowing southwards from the Asturian ranges probably afford as good trout-fishing as any in the Peninsula.

Our own experiences in Leon were limited, as regards its trouting capacities, to a mere flying visit, when we alighted one morning in mid-May, at a wayside station in North Leon, tempted to break a monotonous journey by the trout-like appearance of a stream that, for some distance, had run more or less parallel with the railway.

The country immediately adjacent was not attractive; flat, tawny, and arid, with few trees and very partial cultivation. On either bank, at a mile or two's distance, rose ranges of low broken hills, gradually increasing in height as they closed in upon the river. Here and there stood scattered hamlets, all built of the yellowish sun-baked brick characteristic of Leon; the houses huddled together, and usually enclosed by the remnants of a former wall or fortification.

It was nearly noon ere we reached the waterside, at the head of a long stretch of deep, still water, fringed on the opposite sh.o.r.e with canes and bulrushes, and well rippled by a strong breeze. The sun-glare was intense; and, though the wind enabled us to command the whole water, an hour's fishing (with fly) only resulted in the capture of sundry large silvery coa.r.s.e fish, resembling dace, and weighing from half a pound to a pound and a quarter, and a few small fry--we imagine, bleak. We therefore decided to walk up-stream three or four miles, to the point where its course joined one of the hill-ranges just mentioned. Here, in many places, abrupt limestone crags formed the farther sh.o.r.e; beneath, the stream ran deep, bright, and sparkling, shallowing away to the shelving gravel on our sh.o.r.e, and at each bend forming a pretty pool.

For a long time this likely water produced actually nothing, and we began to fear that our venture in stopping at this outlandish spot was a failure. But as the shadows lengthened and the sun left the water, there came a change. The long-expected and welcome sensation of a determined "rise" was followed by another and another in quick succession; and in the last hour of the day we landed nineteen trout, weighing between seven and eight pounds, of which aggregate the three largest accounted for one-third.

Fully half the trout killed on this and succeeding days rose to a small orange hackle; a bracken-clock, or "coch-y-bondu," as we believe is the proper name, being the next favourite. Winged flies should be small, and of bright colours, and, in the clear waters of Spain, only the finest gut should be used.

Further west, in the Astorga and Ponferrada districts, are probably the best streams of Leon; but these we have not had time to visit.

THE ASTURIAS.--This province is to Spain what the Scotch Highlands are to England--a

Land of brown heath and s.h.a.ggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood.

From the north, the Asturias may be reached by sea; but on the south the only pa.s.s through the continuous mountain-ranges which cut off this rugged province from Leon and transmontane Spain, is by the _puertos_ of Vegarada and Piedrafita, which lead into the upland valleys of the Pajares mountains, one of the chief strongholds of the Spanish bear, and where boar, chamois, and other game are also found.

The extremely abrupt and rugged nature of the river-valleys is, in some sense, a serious drawback to the angler. Many a lovely pool or stretch of perfect trouting-water are absolutely inaccessible--cut off for ever in the depths of some precipitous defile. Broken boulders often impend the river's course for miles, and hopelessly obstruct descent. In other places the water-side can at length be reached after perilous scrambles along rock-ledges, threading the rod through a maze of birch and alder branches. And one picks a precarious path downwards with the knowledge that, even when reached, the range of fishable water will be limited, and the return journey almost worse than the descent.

These hardly-gained pools are, however, worth the trouble of trying.

For, in proportion to their difficulty of access, so are they neglected by the native _pescador_, with all his poaching paraphernalia and hateful engines of destruction.

Our first essay proved blank; the season (May) was, perhaps, too early, and only a few silvery troutlets rewarded a long day's work. This was a small stream, overhung with magnificent chestnuts; but a neighbouring and larger river afforded, for Spain, fair sport. The first series of pools yielded a dozen trout, averaging half a pound. Then came the usual scramble to reach the next fishable bit. While climbing out, over a chaos of tumbled boulders, we almost stepped on a big Marten (_Mustela martes_, Linn.), which bounded from under foot, up the rocks; then turned, and stood chattering savagely at the intruder, her yellow chest not twenty yards away. Probably she had her brood hidden in some crevice, but we could see nothing of them.

Thus, half fishing, half struggling with geological obstructions, we had acc.u.mulated a basket of thirty odd trout, when we observed in the glen below a stretch of lovely water. There were four pools, each debouching into the next in a strong stream that ruffled half the pool below. But the river ran in a deep ravine, the descent was worse than ever, and for some time it was doubtful if we should ever stand on that virgin sh.o.r.e.

We succeeded, however; and presently, across the throat of the upper "run," extended the cast of stone-fly, black gnat, and orange-red spider--possibly the first that ever swept the stream. In a moment we were fast in a trout of the first rank, which had seized the upper fly.

His defence was sullen and strong, slowly moving round the pool; then he twice threw himself a clear yard out of water--a grand silver-clad trout. The end came in due course, but unhastened, and having no net, no risks were run till he rolled over on his glittering side, and could safely be towed in sh.o.r.e, and "docked" in a shallow creek. This trout (one of our best in Spain) was a thick and shapely fish of rather under three pounds, pale in colour, almost silvery, with delicate orange blush, which hardly extended to the fins. He was fairly crammed with creeper, or larvae of stone-fly (in Spanish, _coco_), yet had fallen a victim to the similitude of the perfect insect--the only large fish, by the way, killed on this fly, the majority preferring the small orange-hackle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "VANQUISHED."]

In the same pool we killed two more--a half-pounder, with a smaller fish on the same cast; while the three lower pools yielded nine trout, three averaging a pound apiece, two of three-quarters, and four of minor dimensions--making a total for the day of forty-four trout.

This last short hour's work had realized some ten pounds' weight of fish--the best sport with the trout-rod the writer ever enjoyed in Spain.

THE GAME-BIRDS OF THE ASTURIAS.--It may be appropriate, before leaving this northern province, to add a few lines on its game-birds, which differ greatly from those of the south of Spain.

First comes the Capercaillie, which is spread along the whole Cantabrian range, though in no great numbers, and rarely seen in spring, when they lie extremely close in the densest thickets of the forests. We only raised three or four during many long rambles through the Asturian forests in search of Bruin. The Asturian name is "el Faisan."

Ptarmigan are found in the Pyrenees, but do not seem to extend further west than the province of Navarre. Manuel de la Torre a.s.sured us that there was, in the Asturias, a _Perdiz grisa_ which lived exclusively in the woods, a tame bird, lying very close, and in autumn flying in bands.

Could this be the Hazel-grouse? According to Arevalo, that species is only found in the Pyrenees.

Our familiar Grey Partridge (a bird entirely unknown in the south) we also met with both in the Pyrenees and the Asturias, where it is not uncommon; but is said not to pa.s.s southward of the great cordillera of Leon. In this country, the Grey Partridge is confined to the higher regions of the sierras, only coming down with the snow to the _faldas_, or foothills, in winter, and is _never_ found on the plains as at home.

One other bird peculiar to this region, though not game, deserves a remark: the Great Black Woodp.e.c.k.e.r (_Picus martius_), which is found distributed along all the northern forests. It is, however, very scarce--though least so in the Penas de Europa.

CHAPTER XVI.

EXPERIENCES WITH EAGLES.

I.--FOREST AND PLAIN.

With her vast expanses of sierra and lonely scrub-clad wastes, scarcely inhabited save by ill-tended herds of cattle or goats, but abounding in wild-life--furred, feathered, and scaled--Spain affords conditions peculiarly favourable to raptorial animals. Of the eagle-tribe some eight or nine species are recognized as belonging to the Spanish avi-fauna--some peculiar to the mountain-region, others to the steppe and prairie, as we now proceed to explain. We have ourselves shot all the different kinds of eagle, save two, which are comparatively scarce and irregular stragglers to the Peninsula--namely, _Haliaeetus albicilla_ and _Aq. naevia_.

The first of the tribe to attract our attention was the Spanish Imperial Eagle (_Aquila adalberti_ of R. Brehm), one of the handsomest of European species, a few pairs of which still inhabit most of the wilder provinces of Central and Southern Spain, though their numbers in Andalucia have been grievously reduced since we first met with them in 1872. To shoot this bird was long an ambition of the writer, the attainment of which cost many a long week of hard work, hard fare, and more than one bitter disappointment. All attempts in those earlier days to approach the Imperial Eagle on the open plains which form its favourite home proved futile; though on many occasions we fell in with the bird conspicuously perched, according to its habit during the mid-day heats, on some dead tree or the top of a pine. In later years we have succeeded in this feat, but at that time the most carefully executed "stalk" invariably failed for one reason or another; nor could the eagle be beguiled to come to a bait. Nothing remained but to take what is perhaps an unfair advantage. On April 16th we found a nest, a broad platform of branches built on the very summit of a towering _alcornoque_. Beneath this, in a hut of cistus-twigs, a prey to myriad mosquitoes, I awaited the eagle's return. Slowly pa.s.sed some hours of torture before she re-appeared, took one wide circuit around, and descended with a rush like a whirlwind upon her eyry, completely disappearing from view within its ample circ.u.mference. This event I had not foreseen, and hoped to kill the eagle in the act of alighting. Now it only remained to put her off. Gently I removed my boots, crept from the hut, and walked round the tree--a mountain of green foliage. From no other point was the great nest visible; so I braced up my nerves and shouted. There followed a slight rustling; then the huge wings extended, and for a single instant I saw, through intervening foliage, the whole of the coveted symmetrical form, ere she wheeled back across the tree. A No. 1 cartridge crashed through the branches; a shower of leaves and black feathers floated in the air--instinctively I felt the blow must be mortal, though no vital spot had been presented. Intense was my joy when next she appeared, to see the eagle slanting downwards towards the earth. There she recovered an even keel; the second barrel, too careless perhaps, had no effect, and the great bird slowly flap--flapped away.

Each moment I watched for her collapse, but she still held on, on, across the open, and behind some distant trees was lost to view. Then the iron entered my soul, nor was it any solace to hear, some time afterwards, that that very afternoon my eagle had been found by a couple of _carabineros_; not till a fortnight later was the useless corpse recovered.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SPANISH IMPERIAL EAGLE.]

It was the 6th of May before we found another nest in a distant _dehesa_--again built on an _alcornoque_ (cork-oak), the highest of a clump bordering a small swamp. This eagle sat close, not moving till I stood ready beneath. Then she rose to her feet and I shot as she stood on the nest. She sprang buoyantly upwards, ignoring a second charge placed under the wing as she wheeled back: then soared blindly over Felipe, receiving two more cartridges, and after flying some half a mile slowly settled down to earth in a series of descending circles. Sending Felipe to recover her, I awaited the return of the male; but the sun was low on the horizon ere my eyes were gladdened by the sight of his majestic flight, directly approaching, and with a rabbit hanging from his claws. With quick "yapping" bark, he perched on an outer branch, and next moment fell, wing-broken, to the ground.

A magnificent pair they were: their sable-black plumage glossy with purplish iridescent sheen and with snow-white shoulders. On the occiput a patch of pale gold, the crown being black. The feet and cere of this species are pale lemon-yellow; the irides golden, finely reticulated with hazel.

This eyry contained two eaglets, clad in white down. We have since had many opportunities of observing the breeding habits of this species on the wooded plains of Andalucia and Estremadura. The eggs, usually three in number, are mostly white, more or less splashed or spotted with faint evanescent reddish or brown shades, and are laid about the middle of March. The nests of the Imperial Eagle are about four feet across, and invariably placed on the extreme summit of a tall tree--cork-oak or pine--all projecting twigs being broken off so as to offer no obstruction to the sitting bird's view. The nests are flat, lined with fresh twigs and green pine-needles, and all around and beneath lie strewn the skulls of hares and rabbits--a perfect Golgotha. We have also seen the remains of Partridge, Stone-Curlew, Mallard, and wildfowl, but never those of reptiles. These large nests are most difficult to get into; their position affording no hand-hold above, and from the extent to which they overhang, access can only be obtained by a manuvre a.n.a.logous to scaling the futtock-shrouds of an old line-of-battle ship.

The Imperial Eagle is exclusively confined to the _plains_--we have never seen it in the mountains: its prey consists almost entirely of rabbits and partridge: it is also said to kill bustards, but this we think improbable, though the bird, no doubt, is powerful enough. Its hunting-grounds are the arid, barren _dehesas_ and cistus-wastes--it is not seen on the cornlands frequented by bustard. The adults are recognizable at a long distance by their black plumage and snow-white epaulets--majestic birds of ma.s.sive, powerful appearance. One also sees on the plains other large and powerful eagles of a rich tawny-chestnut colour--very handsome objects as they sit in the sunshine on some lofty pine.

What all these large tawny eagles are is not quite clear; or rather, their precise specific status is not yet settled. Several experienced ornithologists scattered throughout the world--Hume, Brooks and Anderson in India, Cullen in Turkey, Saunders, Irby and Lord Lilford in Spain--have studied these birds, but hitherto the investigations of these accomplished naturalists have resulted in qualified, and sometimes clashing opinions. Extreme difficulties beset the study of the eagle-tribe, for the living subjects refuse to be studied, and resent one's most remote propinquity. To go out eagle-shooting is to court failure. Then, owing to their prolonged adolescence and slow changes of plumage, a single eagle may pa.s.s through several distinct phases, each more p.r.o.nounced than those which divide species from species: added to which is the further fact that while the genus contains several well-defined types, yet its minor forms intergrade with perplexing persistency. Without venturing on any dogmatic opinions, we will relate, as a small contribution towards their natural history, such facts as have come under our notice during many years' observation of the Spanish eagles.

To clear the ground, we must first explain that the young of the Imperial Eagle are, in their first plumage, of a uniform, rich tawny chestnut, or _cafe-au-lait_ colour. We have shot beautiful examples in this stage in June and July, when, during the intense mid-day heat, the young eagles are wont to seek the shade of the tree whereon they were hatched. This plumage continues during two or three years--or more: but the original brightness and depth of hue is rapidly lost with age and exposure to the southern sun. In a few months, these young eagles have faded to an almost colourless, "washed-out" shade that appears almost white at a distance.[41]

Their next stage is to acquire the dark plumage of maturity--a metamorphosis which probably extends over several years. The black feathers growing gradually and irregularly among the light ones, give the bird, during this period, a peculiar piebald or spotted appearance--(_see_ photo below). It is also worth adding, as a curious fact, that many of the feathers of the wing-coverts, scapulars, &c., show _light on one side_ of the shaft, and _dark on the other_. During all this protracted adolescence, it has usually been considered that these eagles did not breed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IMPERIAL EAGLE. (SPOTTED STAGE.)]

During the winter months in Andalucia one sees many of these tawny-coloured eagles, the majority pale in hue--"washed-out" as Griffon Vultures--(undoubtedly young Imperials)--but there are others, less numerous, of a rich bright chestnut, and some of these, we think, may belong to a different species.

In April, 1883, the writer found a nest of one of these large tawny eagles in the distant Corral de la Cita. It was placed on the summit of a stone-pine, almost covering the broad, bushy top, and we had an excellent view of the old bird, as she rose from the nest about 100 yards away:--_de las coloradas_, == "one of the tawny kind!" as my companion remarked. The place was remote, and night too near to allow of our then awaiting her return (though we _should_ have done so at any cost), so, after taking the two eggs (large dusky white, quite spotless), subst.i.tuting for them a couple of hard-boiled hen's eggs, and setting a circular steel-trap in the nest, we left it. On returning next morning there was no sign of the eagle at the nest. After walking all round, shouting out, and going up an adjacent sand-ridge which all but overlooked it, we were satisfied she was not there, especially as the night before she had risen rather wild. Accordingly we prepared to ascend; but whilst throwing the rope over the lowest branches, a great shadow suddenly glided across the sand beside me, and on looking up, there was the great chestnut-coloured eagle slowly flapping from her nest within fifteen or twenty yards overhead. Before I could drop the rope and run to my gun, the chance was gone; unluckily, however, the shot took some effect, and though it failed to stop the eagle, she went away badly struck, with one leg hanging down, and never returned. Thus, by bad luck, an opportunity of settling a doubtful point was thrown away.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TAWNY EAGLE.]

In June of the same year (1883), we obtained a tawny eagle, which we then imagined would be a young Imperial of the year, and being only winged, the bird was placed in the garden at Jerez, where it lived till the autumn of 1885. It was then (at any rate) two and a half years old, and possibly much older, yet it had never changed colour at all. The whole plumage was rich tawny chestnut, rather lighter beneath, and the new autumn feathers, which were growing at the time of the bird's death, were also coming bright chestnut, and without a sign of black. This eagle, which we now have set-up, has also, to our eye, quite a different physical type to _A. adalberti_, old or young, being heavier and more ma.s.sive in build, beak, and claws--indeed, almost vulturine (_see_ photo above). The middle toe appears to have four scutellae, against six (one rudimentary) in _A. adalberti_; tail above uniform dark brown. In captivity it was much noisier, and more _nonchalant_, than the Imperial.