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Every attempt has been made to replicate the original book as printed.
Some typographical errors have been corrected (a list follows the text).
No attempt has been made to correct or normalize the printed
accentuation or spelling of Spanish names or words. (etext transcriber's
note)




UNEXPLORED SPAIN

ABEL CHAPMAN'S WORKS

=BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS=. First Edition, 1889;
---- ----, Second Edition, 1907.

=WILD SPAIN=. (WITH W. J. B.) 1893.

=WILD NORWAY=. 1897.

=ART OF WILDFOWLING=. 1896.

=ON SAFARI= (IN BRITISH EAST AFRICA). 1908.

=UNEXPLORED SPAIN.= (WITH W. J. B.) 1910.

[Illustration: H.M. KING ALFONSO XIII SPEARING A BOAR.]




UNEXPLORED
SPAIN

BY

ABEL CHAPMAN

AUTHOR OF 'WILD SPAIN,' 'WILD NORWAY,' 'ON SAFARI,' ETC.

AND

WALTER J. BUCK

BRITISH VICE-CONSUL AT JEREZ
AUTHOR OF 'WILD SPAIN'

WITH 209 ILLUSTRATIONS BY

JOSEPH CRAWHALL, E. CALDWELL, AND ABEL CHAPMAN
AND FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

NEW YORK

LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.
LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD

1910

INSCRIBED

BY GRACIOUS PERMISSION
TO THEIR MAJESTIES

KING ALFONSO XIII.

HIMSELF AN ACCOMPLISHED SPORTSMAN

AND

QUEEN VICTORIA EUGENIA OF SPAIN

WITH DEEP RESPECT
BY THEIR MAJESTIES' GRATEFUL AND DEVOTED SERVANTS

THE AUTHORS




Preface


The undertaking of a sequel to _Wild Spain_, we are warned, is
dangerous. The implication gratifies, but the forecast alarms not.
Admittedly, in the first instance, we occupied a virgin field, and
naturally the almost boyish enthusiasm that characterised the earlier
book--and probably assured its success--has in some degree abated. But
it's not all gone yet; and any such lack is compensated by longer
experience (an aggregate, between us, of eighty years) of a land we
love, and the sounder appreciation that arises therefrom. Our own
resources, moreover, have been supplemented and reinforced by friends in
Spain who represent the fountain-heads of special knowledge in that
country.

No foreigners could have enjoyed greater opportunity, and we have done
our best to exploit the advantage--so far, at least, as steady plodding
work will avail; for we have spent more than two years in analysing,
checking and sorting, selecting and eliminating from voluminous notes
accumulated during forty years. The concentrated result represents, we
are convinced, an accurate--though not, of course, a
complete--exposition of the wild-life of one of the wildest of European
countries.

No, for this book and its thoroughness neither doubt nor fear intrudes;
but we admit to being, in two respects, out of touch with modern
treatment of natural-history subjects. Possibly we are wrong in both;
but it has not yet been demonstrated, by Euclid or other, that a
minority even of two is necessarily so? Nature it is nowadays customary
to portray in somewhat lurid and sensational colours--presumably to
humour a "popular taste." Reflection might suggest that nothing in
Nature is, in fact, sensational, loud, or extravagant; but the lay
public possess no such technical training as would enable them to
discern the line where Nature stops and where fraud and "faking" begin.
At any rate we frequently read purring approval of what appears to us
meretricious imposture, and see writers lauded as constellations whom we
should condemn as charlatans. Beyond the Atlantic President Roosevelt
(as he then was) went bald-headed for the "Nature-fakers," and in
America the reader has been put upon his guard. If he still likes
"sensations"--well, that's what he likes. But he buys such fiction
forewarned.

In the illustration of wild-life our views are also, in some degree,
divergent from current ideas. Animal-photography has developed with such
giant strides and has taught us such valuable lessons (for which none
are more grateful than the Authors), that there is danger of coming to
regard it, not as a means to an end but as the actual end itself. While
photography promises uses the value of which it would be difficult to
exaggerate, yet it has defects and limitations which should not be
ignored. First as regards animals in motion; the camera sees too
quick--so