THE LARGE GAME OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL
BY ABEL CHAPMAN AND W. J. BUCK
Though comparatively near ‘home,’ Spain is but little known to the
mass of English sportsmen. Its game laws are not such as to deter the
foreigner from visiting its shores, and its game list is a fairly
long and interesting one; but such sport as Spain offers is mostly
‘driving’--a sport exciting enough in itself, but not to be compared
with stalking or still hunting. Besides this, sport in Spain is
expensive. As for the ibex of the Spanish highlands, a competent
authority states that every ibex shot in Spain by our English sportsmen
from Gibraltar costs at the lowest computation 100_l._
In principle, if not in practice, the game laws of Spain resemble our
own, recognising a vested right of chase in the owner or occupier of
the land.
Nominally it is illegal to enter upon any private lands in search of
game without a written permission from the owner; but practically the
sportsman goes wherever he pleases throughout the length and breadth of
this sparsely peopled country, except only in the case of _cotos_ or
preserves.
This is an important exception to the big game hunter, for nearly
all the regions frequented by red deer, at any rate, are strictly
preserved, and wholly forbidden ground to the casual stranger. The
snow-clad Alpine regions where the Spanish ibex and chamois are to be
found, and a few remote haunts of roe deer and pig among the Sierras,
are free to all comers, but the difficulty and expense of arranging
drives and of camping-out in these distant regions are very great.
The Government of Spain is unusually civil to aliens, making no special
stipulations with regard to their sporting rights. Like everyone else
in Spain, the foreigner who wants to shoot must take out a licence to
carry a gun (_uso de escopeta_) and to kill game (_cazar_). The cost of
this is 25 pesetas. In addition to this, each municipality has power
to levy a tax in the form of a licence, giving the holder a right to
shoot over all lands belonging to the municipality the sporting rights
of which have not already been leased. An Englishman furnished with a
letter of introduction from his consul would experience no difficulty
in obtaining such a licence.
The close-time for large game is, as regards certain northern provinces
(Galicia, the Asturias and Santander), from March 1 to September 1, and
for the rest of Spain and her Mediterranean islands from February 15 to
August 15, but it is to be observed that the law as to close time does
not bind game-preservers in their own preserves.
This, in brief, is almost all that an Englishman need know of the game
laws of Spain, although perhaps these two quaint clauses (Arts. 37 and
38 Consolidated and Amended Game Law, January 10, 1879) might affect
him:--
37. A sportsman who wounds a beast has a right to that beast so
long as he, either in person or by his dogs, is in pursuit of it.
38. If one or more beasts are put up by a sportsman or party
of sportsmen, and these beasts, being neither wounded by them
nor their dogs, are subsequently killed during their flight by
another party, those who have killed the game have an equal right
to it with those who first aroused and pursued it.
But the wandering rifleman has little to fear from the law in Spain;
on the contrary, if an expedition is planned and carried out with due
formality and regard to other people’s feelings, permission to shoot
anywhere is rarely refused, assistance even being offered as often as
not by the proprietor to the invader.
Spanish sportsmen count the varieties of _Caza mayor_, or larger game,
in their peninsula, to wit, red deer (_Cervus elaphus_), roe deer
(_Cervus capreolus_), fallow deer (_Cervus dama_), chamois (_Antilope
rupicapra_), Spanish ibex (_Capra hispanica_), bear (_Ursus arctos_),
wolf, fox, lynx (_Felis pardina_), and wild boar.
Of these lynx and fox are only reckoned as large game when killed by a
rifle ball, while fallow deer can hardly be said to exist in Spain in a
truly wild state, although they come near to it in Aranjuez, where they
live free and unenclosed.
As suggested before, ‘driving’ is the commonest form of sport in Spain,
but there are two or three old forms of national sport still alive in
the country, more picturesque and more in keeping with the popular
ideas of the chivalrous Spaniard.
Of these the _chasse au sanglier_ in Estremadura, and the pursuit of
the bear by the _oseros_ of the Asturias, are worth a passing notice.
When the acorns are falling from the oaks during the stillness of
a moonlit night in the magnificent Estremenian woods, and the ripe
chestnuts cover the ground, the _valientes_ of the district assemble
and wait for the boars to come down from their mountain fastnesses to
feed. As soon as the snapping of some dry twig announces the ‘javato’s’
(boar’s) approach, a hound trained to give tongue to boar only is
slipped, and as soon as his first note proclaims a find, a dozen
strong half-bred mastiffs are despatched to his assistance.
Then for a while the hound-music frightens the shadows and shocks
the silence of the sleeping woods; there is a crashing among the dry
forest scrub, a breakneck scurry of mounted men among the timber; then
the furious baying of the hounds and the noisy rush of the hunters
converge towards one dark point among the shadows, and in the half
light a great grizzly tusker dies beneath the cold steel, but not
before he has written a lasting record of the hunt on the hide of some
luckless hound. Pig-sticking proper, as practised in India, is not
known in Spain, though possibly it might be practicable on the plains
of Andalusia.
The bears of Spain are of two varieties--the large dark-coloured
beast known as ‘carnicero,’ and said to prey upon goats, sheep, pigs,
and even to pull down horned cattle upon occasion, and a smaller,
lighter-coloured bear called ‘hormiguero’ or ant-eater, which is common
in the Asturias, feeding upon roots, ants, and such-like humble fare.
Bear hunting in Spain is confined almost exclusively to the north, to
the Pyrenees and Cantabrian highlands. Among the Asturias a kind of
hunting brotherhood of peasants still survives, whose members face
the bear armed only with pike and knife. These men (_los oseros de
España_), with the assistance of a couple of sturdy dogs, seek out
their quarry amid the recesses of the mountains, and slay or are slain
in single combat. Their equipment is simple. A broad-bladed knife and a
double dagger, each of whose triangular, razor-edged blades fits into
a central handle, suffice them for weapons of offence. For defensive
purposes they wear a thick sleeve composed of many layers of coarse
cloth.
When the bear is brought to bay by the dogs the hunter rushes in; as
the bear rises to grip his new assailant the _osero_ plants his knife
in Bruin’s chest, and then, as the animal lowers his head for a moment
beneath the pain of the blow, the double dagger is driven home to the
heart with all the power of the _osero’s_ right arm.
This kind of bear-hunting is hereditary, the profession of _osero_
passing from father to son with the peasants of the Asturias; but for
the most part the bear is killed like other game in Spain, by means of
large organised ‘drives’ or _batidas_.
Red deer are found locally and irregularly over several provinces of
the Peninsula, differing in type from Scotch red deer in the absence of
the shaggy mane or ruff on the neck, and in some slight modifications
in the horns. Being chiefly forest deer their heads are narrow, and the
animals slim built and game-like. They are found both in the mountains
and among the extensive pine forests and scrub-covered plains; but the
finest heads are obtained in the Sierra Morena, to the west of Cordova,
though the deer are most numerous in the southern wooded plains of
Andalusia, in which part of the Peninsula the writers of this chapter,
forming two of a party of eight or ten guns, have killed from twenty to
thirty stags in a week’s shooting, besides wild boar, lynx, and other
beasts, and between sixty and seventy stags in a season.
Deer shooting usually begins in November and ends in February or early
in March.
The following are measurements of heads that we have had the fortune
to obtain in Andalusia. Though not the largest known, they are good
typical heads:--
_Forest Deer_
+-------------------------+---------+-------------+---------+
| | Length |Circumference| Beam |
+-------------------------+---------+-------------+---------+
|No. 1, 8 points (small) | 17¾ ins.| 3½ ins. | 16½ ins.|
| ” 2, 11 ” | 24¼ ” | 3¾ ” | 19½ ” |
| ” 3, 12 ” (royal) | 29 ” | 5¼ ” | 25 ” |
| ” 4, 13 ” ” | 22¾ ” | 4¹⁄₁₆ ” | 22½ ” |
+-------------------------+---------+-------------+---------+
_Mountain Deer_
+-------------------------+---------+---------+
| | Length | Beam |
+-------------------------+---------+---------+
|No. 1, 12 points | 34½ ins.| 32 ins.|
| ” 2, 12 ” | 36 ” | 34 ” |
| ” 3, 15 ” | 37½ ” | 34½ ” |
| ” 4, 17 ” | 40 ” | 36½ ” |
+-------------------------+---------+---------+
Of the Spanish chamois there is little to be said. He is more or less
common in the Pyrenees, where the French call him the ‘izard,’ the
Spaniards ‘rebeco,’ and in the Cantabrian highlands, especially about
the Picos de Europa, where he is ignobly slain by driving.
But the great prize of Spain to men of our craft is the ibex--the
‘Cabra montés’ of Andalusia, the ‘bucardo’ of Aragon. The Spanish
mountaineers do not much affect ibex hunting, though there are a few
hardy souls among them who, donning their _alparagatas_, or hemp-soled
sandals, make a living out of this most fascinating of field sports.
The ibex is found on the highlands of Spain from Biscay to the
Mediterranean, and from the Pyrenees to the Straits of Gibraltar, as
also on the hills round Andorra, on the mountains of Toledo, and along
all the elevated cordillera of central Spain; but its favourite haunt
is the Sierra de Gredos. This lofty sierra is the highest point of the
Carpeto-Vetonico range, extending from Moncayo through Castile and
Estremadura, and forming the watershed of Tagus and Douro. It separates
the two Castiles, and passing the Portuguese frontier is there known as
the Sierra da Estrella, which, with the Cintra hills, extends to the
Atlantic seaboard. Along the whole range of this extensive Cordillera
there is no such favourite ground for the ibex as its highest peak--the
Plaza de Almanzor. During the winter months the ibex are found on the
lower slopes of the range towards Estremadura, but in summer and autumn
herds of them, especially the males, make their homes in the environs
of Almanzor. The best time for ibex shooting in Spain is during the
months of July and August. Heavy snowstorms make sport in the winter
dangerous and uncertain.
With regard to the specific distinction of the Spanish ibex, some
authorities have held that the ibex of the Pyrenees differs from that
of the Sierra Nevada and southern mountains, the former animal agreeing
more with the typical ibex of the Alps.
Sir Victor Brooke, in a note just received, remarks, ‘The Pyrenean ibex
are much larger beasts than those of the southern Spanish Sierras. In
the Pyrenees they are scarce, and live in the worst precipices I ever
saw an animal in--they go into _far_ worse ground than the chamois, and
are very nocturnal, never seen except in the dusk or early dawn unless
disturbed.’
[Illustration: SPANISH IBEX
(_Capra hispanica_)]
We, however, have found no material difference in the form of the horns
of ibex from the Pyrenees and those from Central and Southern Spain.
The following are the maximum dimensions of six ibex heads from these
latter districts, all measured by the writers:--
_Measurements of Six Ibex Heads_
+--------+----------+----------+----------+-------------+
| | Age | Length | Sweep |Circumference|
+--------+----------+----------+----------+-------------+
| No. 1 | 5 years | 18½ ins. | 11½ ins. | 9⅜ ins. |
| ” 2 | 8 ” | 27½ ” | 23 ” | 9 ” |
| ” 3 | 8 ” | 28¼ ” | 19 ” | 8¾ ” |
| ” 4 | 8 ” | 29 ” | 18¾ ” | 9 ” |
| ” 5 | Aged | 29 ” | 22½ ” | 9¼ ” |
| ” 6 | ” | 29¼ ” | 23¼ ” | 9½ ” |
+--------+----------+----------+----------+-------------+
All these were shot on the Central and South Spanish sierras.
The following are the measurements of Sir Victor Brooke’s three best
Pyrenean ibex heads:--
+----+---------+-------------+--------+
| | Length |Circumference| Sweep |
+----+---------+-------------+--------+
| A | 26 ins. | 10 ins. | 21 ins.|
| B | 29 ” | 10 ” | 23 ” |
| C | 31 ” | 8¾ ” | 26½ ” |
+----+---------+-------------+--------+
[It may be added that the writers of this chapter devoted almost the
whole of 1891 to the investigation of the natural history of this
little-known corner of Europe, so that those specially interested may
supplement this sketch by a study of their work, ‘Wild Spain.’--ED.]