BIRDS OF prey: VULTURES. 151 



are fairly represented. Naturally the Chinese have made 

 the best use they could of such opportunities. In all countries, 

 the combined swiftness and hunting instincts of hawks and 

 falcons have been utilized in the service of man. Needless 

 to say such a source of profit and pleasure has not been 

 neglected here. Up north, and wherever the country is open 

 enough to permit of it, hawking is to-day in as great demand 

 by country sportsmen as ever it was two or three hundred 

 years ago in England. On foot and on horseback is the 

 chase carried on, with hawks of all sizes, falcons, and even 

 eagles, the last being trained to follow the larger four- 

 footed quarries, hares, antelopes, foxes, etc. One small 

 variety of hawk is trained to catch sparrows in the environs 

 of Peking. It will probably be necessary to dwell further 

 on this portion of our subject in a later chapter. 



Of the vulture family we have but three to account for, 

 and these may be disposed of at once. The first is Vidtur 

 monachiis, so called from a fancied similarity between its 

 ruff-like neck feathers and a monk's cowl. He is a big bird, 

 4ft. in length and with a corresponding spread of wing. 

 Only when pressed by hunger does he venture to attack 

 living creatures. David says his visits to China proper are 

 rare, but he is known to the northern Chinese as the "great 

 black eagle," his colour being really a dark chocolate brown 

 shading into black with lighter marking on the breast. In 

 Mongolia he is commoner. There is nothing to boast either 

 in his manners or his morals. In common with his tribe he 

 is repulsive to the eye, and to the nose ; sluggish, inert, filthy, 

 and cowardly. Once in the air, however, he becomes to the eye 

 transformed. There is nothing graceful in hisflightasflight, for 

 his wings flap heavily and laxly, but his soaring ascent in 

 spiral curves is something to wonder over, something for an 

 airman to watch, to envy, and so far as may be to copy. His 

 downward descent, a "coast" of thousands of feet, is in its way 

 equally wonderful. In the long-lived discussion respecting 

 the question whether the vulture is attracted to his prey by 

 sight or scent nobody seems to have referred to one very 

 obvious fact, viz. that vultures are well known to descend 

 and surround not onlj^ dead animals but sickly ones, especially 

 those very near their end. This of itself ought to have gone 

 far to settle the dispute, for there is no offensive smell from 

 an animal yet alive. Experiments have proved, however, 

 that it is sight rather than scent that brings the vulture from 

 heights and distances beyond the ken of man to feast on 

 fallen prey. Stuffed animals have attracted them, whilst 

 hidden decaying bodies in a high state of putrefaction have 

 been passed by though it was unquestionable that the vultures 

 knew there was food near. 



