Quebranta-huesos, the Bone-breaker 433 
the bird has acquired the name in Spain of Quebranta-huesos, 
“bone-smasher” (from esos, a bone, and guebrar, to break). 
So familiar is this habit to all those who live in the countries 
where the bird is found that I had not intended to inflict my 
experiences of the same on the readers of this book, since for 
years it has been to me a matter of certainty that the Bearded 
Vulture broke bones by dropping them from a height. 
Despite the fact that this curious habit has been accepted by 
many successive writers, in one of the most recent books on 
ornithology, published in 1907 (‘The Fauna of South Africa,” 
vol. iv., by W. L. Sclater and A. C. Stark") I was surprised to see 
that this habit of bone-breaking is referred to as only a reputed 
one. But this was not all, in Allan Hume’s admirable Notes on 
Indian Birds, it is described how the Bearded Vulture had been seen 
to carry up bones toa height and drop them but that there was no 
positive proof that this was done of a set purpose, since the 
reporters of the occurrence had not seen the bird complete the 
operation by descending to make a meal off the fractured bone. 
I make not the smallest doubt but this habit of the Bearded 
Vulture has been described by others far more competent than 
myself, but as such records are apparently not generally accessible 
(in fact I can find none in any library), I venture now to describe 
what I actually saw on this eighth day of April 1906. 
I may explain that in southern Spain the name of Quedvanta- 
huesos is known far and wide to all dwellers in the sierras but that 
in the very extensive districts where the Bearded Vulture is rarely 
if ever seen, the name is applied to its small relative the Egyptian 
Vulture or Neophron. The Neophron however has never been 
supposed to break bones, after the manner of the Bearded Vulture. 
1 Dr. Stark was killed by a Boer shell during the siege of Ladysmith. 
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