Proof Unmistakeable 435 
feed off it. Then it seized it, this time with its /e/¢ foot, again just 
below the fetlock and took wing. It was at once noticeable that 
the limb was much shorter than before, as if the femur had been 
torn from off it. I made a second sketch of the bird as it soared 
aloft above us, which appears at the end of this chapter. 
Soon it lowered its flight and alighted on a crag a few hun- 
dred yards from us where it set to work to pick at the limb. 
After a time it took wing again this time without the limb but 
in place of flying upwards it swept down into a valley about 300 ft. 
below the bone-breaking terrace and alighted. With my glass | 
watched it walk a few yards up to the carcass of a calf and 
commence to tear at it. Soon it was joined by an adult Neo- 
phron, the vast dissimilarity in size between the two birds 
being most noticeable. 
The Neophron did not seem to be alarmed at the presence 
of its big relative and between times got in a good many tugs 
and mouthfuls of sorts. After a time the Vulture took wing and 
sailed off leaving the Neophron in possession. From the terrace 
we were working along it was a precipitous descent to the bone- 
breaking plateau and to reach it meant retracing our steps for 
a mile or more, so I reluctantly left the spot without visiting it. 
A goatherd with us assured us that it was one of the favourite 
places for the birds to drop bones and I have no doubt he was 
right. 
The sharp splintering crack made by the impact of the bone 
on the rock is an unmistakable sound and I can recall instances 
before the occurrences narrated when I have heard it when climb- 
ing in the sierra frequented by Bearded Vultures and the men 
with me have asserted the cause, which I at the time disbelieved. 
Since then I have heard it two or three times but never before 
or since have I thus witnessed the three phases of carrying the 
bone aloft, dropping it and descending to feed on it, 
