2 EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS. 



THE EGYPTIAN VULTUKE. 

 {Vultiir percnopterus.)* 



Plate 1, Figs. 4, 5. 



Two instances of the existence of the Egyptian Vulture in 

 our British area are all that can be authenticated. One bird was 

 shot in Bridgewater Bay, in Somersetshire, in October, 1825, and 

 another at Peldon, in Essex, in September, 1868. 



The Egyptian Vulture inhabits the countries of the Mediter- 

 ranean, eastwards to Central Asia and north-western India, and 

 south, throughout Africa in winter, down to the Cape Colony. 



The eggs are to be found in April and May. In Greece I 

 found the number to be normally two, one much more richly 

 coloured than the other. It is said that three are sometimes 

 laid. The eggs of the Egyptian Vulture are huffish or creamy- 

 white in ground-colour, spotted with brownish-red. Sometimes 

 the spots are confluent all over the egg, paler in places. Every 

 intermediate type occurs between this and eggs in which the 

 colouring-matter is distributed in blotches and small and large 

 spots, which only become confluent at the large end, or, in very 

 exceptional cases, at the small end. They vary in length from 

 2"9 to 2'3 inches, and in breadth from 2'1 to 19 inch. 



THE JEK-FALCON. 



(Falco gyrfalco.)i 



Plate 5, Fig. 8. 



The Jer-Falcons are divisible into several races or sub-species. 

 In my "History of British Birds" I recognised five well-marked 

 forms. Sharpe in his latest work does the same, the truth being 

 that it is difficult to obtain an adequate series of these rare 

 Falcons for exact comparison at the same time, and consequently 

 much difference of opinion prevails on the subject. On the dis- 

 tinctness of F. labradorus from Labrador (F. obsoletus of American 

 authors) there can be no question, and we are all agreed on this 

 head. Nor is there any difficulty with respect to the Norwegian 

 F. gyrfalco, though whether this species inhabits North America 



* Neophron percnopterus — Saunders, Manual p. 303 ; Sharpe, t. c. p, 120. 

 f Hierofalco gyrfalco — Sharpe, Handb. Brit. B., II., p. 197. 



