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‘ neighbour’s movements, and follows his course ; a third still further 
removed, follows the flight of the second; he is traced by another, 
and so a perpetual succession is kept up as long as a morsel of 
flesh remains over which to consort. I can conceive no other way 
of accounting for the numbers of vultures which in the course of a 
few hours will gather over a carcase, when previously the horizon 
might have been scanned in vain for more than one, or at the most 
two in sight.” A specimen of the Griffon vulture was caught near 
Cork in 1843 by a boy, and two specimens of Egyptian vulture have 
been shot in the British Isles, these therefore head the list of 
British birds. Canon Tristram says again of the Griffon vultures : 
‘‘They were able to fast for days, but whenever such an oppor- 
tunity as a camel’s carcase presented itself they would be revenged 
on their fast. I have seen our pet Musha Pasha attack a dead 
camel, and, as his crop became distended, sink upon his breast 
unable to stand, till at length, even this position being too much 
for him, he lay on his side still eatiug, until, overcome and helpless, 
he fell asleep.”” That I should call gluttony. As I said in the 
beginning of my paper, moralists must be careful in selecting their 
examples. The strength of this same vulture’s stomach was 
equal to its capacity, for on one occasion it devoured a half pound 
pot of arsenical soap, and only suffered sickness in consequence. 
There is a bird of the hawk family, found in Africa, called the 
Secretary bird,which is very skilful in d- stroying venomous serpents. 
It is for this reason protected by various Governments in South 
Africa. It does not always win the fight. One was observed to 
suddenly leave off fighting, and run to a pool of water, where it fell 
down dead. It fights by spreading its wings out in front as a 
shield to guard its body, and then suddenly assails the snake by a 
tremendous blow with its feet. If the snake bites a feather, the 
bird immediately pulls it out ; but in the fatal stance mentioned, 
the snake had drawn blood from the point of the wing. This is a 
handsome bird, standing more than four feet high, with an elegant 
crest of plumes on its head. 
In the Museum you can see a pair of sparrow hawks. These 
birds make smaller birds their prey much more frequently than 
the kestrel, of which Mr. Ullyett has kindly lent me this specimen 
to-night. I am not quite sure that I have seen sparrow hawks 
about here lately, but the kestrels afforded me a lot of amusement 
this past summer. I was on the edge of the chalk cliffs overlooking 
the Warren, whon I heard a peculiar whining cry, like that of a 
small baby. I looked across to a very steep, prominent, chalky 
height, and saw three or four kestrels flying about in a very excited 
way, and screaming. In a very short time I saw a very small 
yabbit run rather slowly up an almost perpendicular piece of the 
