NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



even with a sheep under normal conditions ; but when 

 the ewe is in the act of lambing, these birds sometimes 

 attack and destroy both it and the lamb. Many stock 

 farmers, therefore, shoot it at sight or poison it. It 

 is easy, however, to provide a shepherd when the 

 ewes are lambing. The majority of farmers have 

 shepherds for their flocks at all times. 



The necessity for the scavenging services of the 

 vulture and carrion crow grows less every year. With 

 the advance of science and education, we in the more 

 settled parts could afford to dispense with the vulture. 



When carrion is plentiful the vulture will, however, 

 rarely attack a living animal, even when quite helpless. 

 I have many a time seen them in their hundreds 

 watching for days a dying ox, sitting in rows like a 

 regiment of soldiers waiting for the animal to die. 



I once saw fifteen vultures watch a helpless dying 

 sheep for two days, but none of them approached close 

 to the animal until it died. They then rushed in and 

 squabbled furiously over the carcass. 



The aas vogels usually assemble and sit like a 

 regiment of soldiers a short distance from a carcass, 

 if it be a large one like that of an ox or horse, waiting 

 until decomposition is well advanced, for two reasons : 

 (i) They prefer decayed to fresh meat ; (2) the hide 

 is more easily broken by their beaks, and the meat can 

 be torn off with little effort. Sometimes, when the 

 vulture is not too heavily laden with food, it flies off, 

 and being consumed with thirst, alights, drinks too 

 greedily, and often vomits a portion of the putrid meat, 

 seething with disease microbes, into the water which 



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