Читать книгу Unexplored Spain - Abel Chapman - Страница 8

Far through the marish green and still the watercourses sleep.

Inspiring moments are those when—before the beat has commenced—your eye catches on some far-away skyline the broad antlers of a stag. This animal has perhaps been on foot and alert, or maybe has taken the “wind” from the group of beaters wending a way to their points far beyond. For three seconds the antlers remain stationary, then vanish into some intervening glen. A glance around shows your next neighbour still busy completing his shelter—meritorious work if done in time—and you have strong suspicion that the man beyond will just now be lighting a cigarette! Such thoughts flash through one’s mind; the dominant question that fills it is: “Where will that great stag reappear?” But few seconds are needed to solve it. Perhaps he dashes, harmless, upon the careless, perhaps upon the slow—lucky for him should either such event befall! On the other hand, those moments of glorious expectancy may resolve in a crash of brushwood hard by, in a clinking of cloven hoofs, and a noble hart with horns aback is bounding past your own ready post. What proportion, we inwardly inquire, of the stags that are killed by craftsmen has already, just before, offered first chance to the careless or the slovenly?

“Inspiring Moments.” (NEITHER CAUGHT NAPPING.)

We may conclude this chapter with an independent impression.

Lying hidden in one of these lonely puestos—writes J. C. C.—ever induces in me a powerful and sedative sense of contemplation and reflection, though fully alert all the time. While thus waiting and watching, I can’t but marvel, first at nature’s wondrous plan of waste—a scheme here without apparent object or promise of fulfilment. Where I lie the prospect comprises nothing but melancholy and unutterably silent solitudes of sand, droughty wastes with but at rare intervals some starveling patch of scant weird shrub destined either to shrivel in summer’s sun or shiver in winter’s winds. But, lying in that environment, one marvels yet more at the extreme caution displayed by wild animals; one has exceptional opportunity of admiring the exquisitive gifts bestowed by nature upon her ferae. Here is a young stag coming straight along, down-wind, ere yet the beat has begun, and in a desolate spot which to human sense could betray absolutely no feature or taint of danger. Suddenly he becomes rigid, arrested in mid-career—sniffing at a pure untainted air, yet conscious somehow of something wrong somewhere! It is a miraculous gift, though one cannot but feel grateful that we humans are devoid of senses that ever keep nerves in highest tension. Here is a sketch of a non-shootable stag thus suddenly statuetted thirty yards from me snugly hidden well down-wind, and so intensely interested that something else (a very old pal) well-nigh escaped notice.

ALTABACA (Scrofularia) The starveling shrub that grows in sand.

TOMILLO DE ARENA Another sand-plant (in spring has a lovely pink bloom like sea-thrift).

That something was our good friend Reynard—Zorro they style him out here—whose proverbial cunning exceeds all other cunnings. He has come down to my track and there stopped dead, expressing in every detail the very essence of doubly-distilled subtlety and craft. At those footprints he halts, sniffs the wind, curls his brush dubiously—as a cat will do when pleased—but not sure yet of his next move. One second’s consideration decides him and it is executed at once—he is off like a gust of wind. But a Paradox ball at easy range in the open broke a hind-leg, and it was curious to note his evolutions—he, poor fellow, not realising what had occurred, flung himself round and round in rapid gyrations, the while biting at his own hind-leg. Needless to say not an instant passed ere a second ball terminated his sufferings. To observe the beautiful traits in the habits of wild beasts is to me quite as great a joy as adding them to my score and immensely augments the enjoyment of a big-game drive.

“WHAT’S THIS?”

RED DEER HEADS—COTO DOÑANA.

This list is neither comprehensive nor consecutive, but merely a record of such good and typical heads as we happened to have within reach.

For Table of Heads of Mountain-Deer see Chapter on Sierra Moréna.

	Length. (Inches.)	Widest.	Circum- ference.	Points.	Remarks.
Tips.	Inside.
W. I. B.	32¼	30	…	…	13
Do.	31 + 30¼	32⅝	…	…	10	No bez.
P. Garvey	31	28	…	4⅝	15
Col. Brymer	30½ + 28	27	23	4¼	10	No bez.
Col. Echagüe	30⅛ + 28½	20	18	4½	14	4 on each top.
Villa-Marta,	29¾ + 29½	31¼	…	4½	13	4 on each top,
Marquis						but 1 bez wanting.
Segovia, Gonzalo[9]	29¾ + 29½	39½	…	5¼	10	No bez.
Arión, Duke of	29 + 28	30	…	…	14
A. C.	29 + 28¼	25	…	5	12
Do.	28½	26½	…	5⅛	13
P. N. Gonzalez	28½	25	22	5	12
Arión, Duke of	28¼	23	21½	4⅛	10	No bez.
F. J. Mitchell	28 + 27	30½	…	…	14	4 on each top.
A. C.	27 + 26¾	24	24	4¼	10
Do.	25½	28¼	24	4⅕	11	At British Museum.
Williams, Alex.	25½	27¾	23¼	4¼	12
B. F. B.	25¾ + 24	27¼	22¾	4¼	12
De Bunsen, Sir M.	25½ + 25	27	…	4½	11
B. F. B.	24½ + 24½	27½	…	4½	12
J. C. C.	23	29½	22½	4⅛	12
B. F. B.	22½	21½	19	4¼	12

Ordinary Royals (by which we mean full-grown stags in their first prime) average 24 or 25 inches in length of horn. Heads of 26 to 28 inches belong to rather older beasts which have continued to improve. Anything beyond the latter measurement is quite exceptional, and is often due, not so much to fair straight length of the main beam as to an abnormal development of one of the top tines—usually directed backwards. There are, however, included in our records two or three examples of long straight heads which fairly exceed the 30-inch length.