César-Javier Palacios reports on the cyclist, shot dead by a hunter who mistook him for a boar. When in death’s dark vale loud singing usually suffices to drive off hell’s hunters. Hunters know this too. In his romance, Count Arnaldos, hungry hawk in hand, falls prey to a sailor (love, glory or death, true or…
Classic nimbyism, enabled by Spain’s lack of effective central government: Castilla y León has lots of wolves, but other communities which, according to ecologists, should in historical and biological terms have some, don’t want to take the overproduction. So they’re being shot. I don’t suppose we could airlift them to the outskirts of Reykjavik.
With the vaguest of references to i-shepan-im here’s Kirby’s wonderful and scientific museum in 1820: The fecundity of the rabbit is truly astonishing ; it breeds seven times in the year, and generally produces eight young at a time ; from which it is calculated, that one pair may increase in the course of four…
Photo 7 on this page shows a lamb being carried by refugees from villages on the Spanish side of the central Pyrenees as the Stalinist-led 43rd Division prepared its famous last stand–the Bielsa Pocket/la Bolsa de Bielsa–against Franco’s advancing Navarrans in spring 1938. Bielsa was completely shattered by the latter’s artillery, but the scorched earth…
The British Sardine Racing association (popups) is “dedicated to breeding a better Sardine, revolutionising training methods, and the breeding of both pedigree fish, and Hybrids, such as the Sardine/Shark crossbreed.” The Living Age (1919): “… eagerly bending over a long, narrow tank on the floor. They were racing sardines, taking them out of a tin…
George Sandford has left a fascinating comment on this post, which deals with an amusing 19th century literary-historical hoax–purported correspondence between Ferdinand the Catholic and an esoteric global selection of fellow-monarchs. George is family of the alleged editor, Brother Antonio the Goth, and thus of the Christian clan kidnapped by the Moors when they invaded…
Lucanus cervus (Ciervo volante) on the hills above San Juan de Plan in the Pyrenees of Huesca (the second bit of the video is what you’re after): Proyecto Ciervo Volante writes: Flight abilities seem, in principle, well developed. Fight speed reaches 6 km/h (D’Ami, 1981) but dispersal abilities are unknown. There are XIX century tales…
When Europa played over at Sant Andreu in November, the local Four Bar Squad, which has record, unveiled a banner showing another local saint, St Martin, in wolf costume slaughtering a pig dressed as one of Europa’s following (they believe they’re tigers, not pigs, but whatever): Sant Andreu duly murdered Europa 3-0. The return is…
I was having a chat about stuff with Pete Doherty this morning, and he tells me that because of the common genetic ancestry of most of the races of the Milky Way galaxy, many species are able to interbreed with or without the help of genetic technology. In fact dogs and doves are quite similar,…