_Euchloëbelia_ (March) and the curious insect figured alongside, we know not what it is.[69] [Illustration] For more than thirty years within our knowledge (and probably for centuries before) these cliffs have formed a home of Bonelli's eagle. Two huge stick-built nests stand out in visible projection from crevices in the crag, some forty yards apart. To-day (April 3) the occupied eyrie contained a down-clad eaglet, four partridges, and half a rabbit, besides a partridge's egg, intact, and sundry scraps of flesh, all quite fresh. The nest was lined with green olive-twigs; swarms of carrion-flies buzzed around, and a great tortoiseshell butterfly alit on its edge while we were yet inside. The parent eagles soared overhead, the female carrying a half rabbit, which, in her impatience, she presently commenced to devour, the pair perching on a dead ilex, and affording us this sketch and another inserted at p. 26. Her white breast shone in the sun with a satin-like sheen. Within sight (though fifteen miles away) is another eyrie of this species--the alternative nests not ten feet apart, merely a projecting buttress of rock separating the two vertical fissures in which they rest. This site is in a rock-stack standing out from the wooded slope of the sierra. The two eggs, slightly blotched with red, were laid in February. The rough bush-clad hills above our cliff are preserved, and presently meeting the gamekeeper, we tried--(that daily toll of four partridges plus sundry rabbits had got on our consciences!)--to put in a word for our eagle-friends, assuring him they did him service by destroying snakes and big lizards (which they don't). "Si, señor," he agreed, adding, "y los insectos!" [Illustration: BONELLI'S EAGLES SOARING AROUND EYRIE Note white patch in centre of back, between the wings.] Farther along the cliff we found two nests of neophron, each containing two very handsome eggs. This bird makes a comfortable home, the foundation being of sticks, but with a warmly lined central saucer, bedecked with old bones, snakes' vertebrae, rabbit-skulls, and similar ornaments. The nests were on overhung shelves of the vertical crag, and (like those of the eagles) only accessible by rope. There lay a rat in one--and rather "high." Remaining denizens of these crags we can but briefly name. A pair of eagle-owls had three young (fully fledged by June 10) in a deep rock-fissure; there were also ravens, many lesser kestrels, and a colony of genets. III. OAK-WOOD AND SCRUB