434 The Bearded Vulture 
Repeatedly during my wanderings have I had pointed out to 
me by goatherds and others, sz¢ws, places whither the Quedbranta- 
huesos resorted, to carry out his time-honoured practice of bone- 
smashing and now and again on visiting such spots have I come 
across the dried up and putrid limb of a goat or sheep. But 
hitherto I had never actually witnessed the methods adopted by 
the birds. 
Now as to our experiences; we had sent our mules towards 
home down the steep valley which we had followed in our out- 
ward voyage in the morning and had taken a line along a great 
bluff surmounted by high cliffs on the chance of coming across 
something of interest. From time to time we sighted Bearded 
Vultures high overhead, six times single birds, and twice a pair, 
probably from the nest we had visited. 
Presently we saw a single bird sailing around perhaps 2,000 
ft. above, carrying some long object, considerably longer than the 
long cuneate-tail of the bird. With the telescope I made this out 
to be the hind-limb of some large animal. The bird was clutching 
it with its vzgh¢t foot just below the fetlock and after watching it 
circling aloft for some minutes, I dropped my glass and made a 
pencil sketch of what I saw, from which the drawing here given 
is copied. 
Hardiy had I completed this when the bird let the object go. 
I was accompanied by the late Mr. Edward Hunt, the Chief 
Engineer of the Algeciras-Bobadilla Railway, and we watched the 
object whirling. down for certainly 1,500 ft. until it struck an 
horizontal terrace of limestone rock below us, The sharp crash it 
made was distinctly audible from our post, some quarter-mile distant 
and perhaps 200 ft. above the spot where it struck. Almost 
immediately, the Bearded Vulture dived downwards and after one 
or two descending sweeps alighted close to the object. With my 
telescope I watched it pull the limb about for a few minutes and 
