ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



S()l 



EVERY BRANCH TREMBLES WITH THE WEIGHT OF VULTURES 

 An Adjutant is Perched on a Bough in the Center Picture 



THE SCAVENGER lURDS OF INDIA 



Hii C. William Beebe 

 Curator of Birds 



We who enjoy the comforts of Western civili- 

 z.ition, seldom give a thought to tlie perfection 

 of operation and conceahiient of our vast sani- 

 tary and other systems. Occasionally the intri- 

 cate lines of sewers, the mighty water-pipes, the 

 inesh-work of electric wiring are laid bare in 

 our streets ; all that necessary subterranean 

 plexus whicii makes life pleasant or possible in 

 our great cities. But to realize that there are 

 lands where, between scores of millions of human 

 beings and the most dread diseases due to un- 

 sanitary' conditions^ are bulwarks only of hosts 

 of feathered beings, great and small, is a new 

 thought, and one which should abate every feel- 

 ing except of interest and appreciation. 



Even before one's steamer comes within sight 

 of the low marshy shoreline of India, there is 

 evidence of the bird scavengers of that country. 

 Hardly have the propellers begun to churn u]i 

 the muddy water of the Hoogly. many miles 

 from land, than gulls of several species come 

 screaming toward the vessel and from tiience 



onward every port-hole, every motion of the 

 ])assengers is kept under surveillance, until a 

 stray bit of bread or other refuse draws the 

 flock downward in swift spirals to the water. 



Gulls in this role are familiar even in our 

 New York harbor, but when we enter the Hoogly 

 itself a new element is introduced, the kite — the 

 Brahminy kites with their long graceful wings 

 and deep cleft tail, clad in strongly contrasting 

 hues of white and rich chestnut, and the less 

 conspicuous brown pariah kites of the city itself. 

 These birds are adapted both in swift flight and 

 grasp of talons for a life of pursuit and capture 

 of living creatures, but they have chosen the 

 easier method of livelihood in this land teeming 

 with mankind, of subsisting upon refuse. Our 

 country is not without a parallel, for along the 



« These notes %vere made chiefly in 

 and Rangoon, The birds mentioned an 

 headed Gull — Larus brunneicephalus; 1 

 indus; Pariah Kite — Milvus govinda; Hou 

 splendens and insolans ; Jungle Crow — Con 

 White-backed Vulture — Pseudogyps bengal, 

 Liptoptilus dubius. 



/icinity of Calcutta 

 following; — Brown- 

 inv Kite — Haliastur 



A HUNDRED VULTURES FLAP TO THE FEAST 



A STRUGt.LlNG PILE OF BIRDS 



