. Unexplored Spain. Hunting; Natural history. 232 Unexplored Spain many fresh species of birds, including :—nuthatch (not seen elsewhere in Spain), green woodpecker, common (but no azure) magpies, golden orioles, pied and spotted fly-catchers, grey and white wagtails (breeding), whitethroats and nightingales, longtailed tits, woodlarks, corn-buntings, rock-sparrows, and quite a number of warblers (spectacled, rufous, and subalpine, Bonelli's and melodious willow-warblers), besides the usual common species —serins, chaffinches, robins, wrens, and so on. On the sterile upland plateaux, both here
. Unexplored Spain. Hunting; Natural history. 232 Unexplored Spain many fresh species of birds, including :—nuthatch (not seen elsewhere in Spain), green woodpecker, common (but no azure) magpies, golden orioles, pied and spotted fly-catchers, grey and white wagtails (breeding), whitethroats and nightingales, longtailed tits, woodlarks, corn-buntings, rock-sparrows, and quite a number of warblers (spectacled, rufous, and subalpine, Bonelli's and melodious willow-warblers), besides the usual common species —serins, chaffinches, robins, wrens, and so on. On the sterile upland plateaux, both here and in Castile, the black-bellied sand- grouse breeds, as well as stone-curlew, bustard, and the usual larks and Geanadilla At the extreme northern verge of the plain one encounters a singular survival of long-past and forgotten ages, the " fenced city" of Granadilla, so absolutely unspoilt and unchanged by time that one breathes for a spell a pure mediaeval air. Grana- dilla is mentioned in no book that we possess ; but it stands there, nevertheless, perched on a rocky bluff above the rushing Alag6n, and entirely encompassed by a tliirty-foot wall. Not a single house, not a hut, shows up outside that rampart, and its single gate is guarded by a massive stone-built tower. This tower, we were told by a local friend, was erected after the " Eeconquest" (which here occurred about 1300), but the bridge which spans the Alag6n, immediately below, is attributed to the Romans—more than a thousand years earlier! and the town itself to the Moors—a pretty tangle which some wandering archaeologist may some day ' That the Moors established a settlement here, or hard by, we are confident owing to the Immediately adjoining the south approaoli to the bridge over the Alagon is sculptured on the bluff a heraldic device representing a figure plucking a pomegranate (Granada) from a tree—the arras of Granadilla. There is an inscription, with date, ben
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, booksubjecthunting, booksubjectnaturalhistory
