THE SCAVENGER VULTURES. 121 



Adult Male. — General colour white, with a little tinge of rust- 

 colour on the neck-hackles ; the primaries black, externally 

 ashy-white at the base ; the secondaries dark brown, exter- 

 nally ashy-white ; the head bare and yellow, with a little scanty 

 down on the throat, and with a few whitish feathers in front 

 of the eye ; chest bare ; bill pale horny-brown ; feet yellowish- 

 white; iris red or reddish-brown. Total length, 25 inches; 

 culmen, 2-8; wing, 19*2; tail, 10*0; tarsus, 3-5. 



Adult Female.— Similar to the male in colour. 



Young Birds. — Differ from the adults in being blackish-brown 

 in colour, with fulvous tips to the feathers. As the birds grow 

 older, th^ mantle and the wing- coverts become more and more 

 of an ochre shade, till they gradually assume the white plumage 

 of the adults ; fore part of head and neck dirty grey. 



Range in Great Britain. — Two specimens are all that have been 

 obtained within our limits, and the Egyptian Vulture must be 

 reckoned as one of our rarest and most occasional visitants. 

 Two birds were observed in October, 1825, in Bridge water 

 Bay in Somersetshire, and one of them, a young bird, was shot. 

 In September, 1868, another was killed in Essex, at Peldon. 



Range outside the British Islands. — Chiefly an inhabitant of the 

 Mediterranean countries, extending eastwards to Central Asia, 

 and said to occur also in North-western India. It is found in 

 Southern France and throughout the Spanish Peninsula, breed- 

 ing also in the Canaries, Madeira, and the Cape Verd Islands. 

 Thence it extends eastwards on both sides of the Mediter- 

 ranean to Egypt and North-eastern Africa, to the Caucasus, 

 Persia, and Turkestan. In winter it wanders south through 

 Africa down to the Cape Colony. In the Indian Peninsula it 

 is represented by a closely allied form. Neophron ginginianus^ 

 which has a yellow bill, and is rather smaller in all its dimen- 

 sions. In confinement Colonel Irby says that it takes three 

 years for a Neophron to assume the adult's white plumage, but 

 in a wild state he believes that it is donned with great rapidity. 



Habits. — The Scavenger Vulture is a filthy bird, according to 

 human notions, but is a useful one in the hot climates where it 

 lives. It arrives early in Europe, and the earliest dates of its 

 northward migration near Gibraltar is the 23rd of February, 



