144 ALCONIFORMES CHAP. 
constructing a bulky shallow nest of sticks, grass, and wool almost 
invariably on trees, and laying one, or rarely two, white eggs 
blotched with dark red. The plumage is brownish-black, with a 
ruff of lanceolate feathers below the bare neck, and black down 
on the crown and throat. The naked skin and cere are of a livid 
flesh-colour, the feet yellowish; the bill is black, the iris brown. 
Lophogyps ocerpitalis, of East and South Africa and Senegal, is dark 
brown with blacker remiges and rectrices,and some white on the 
wings ; the reddish head and neck are bare, except for white down 
on the crown, which thickens towards the occiput; the ruff is 
brown, the abdomen and crop are white, the feet pinkish ; the bill 
is orange with bluish cere, the iris brown.  Ofogyps auricularis, of 
North-East and South Africa, called the “ Eared Vulture ” from the 
fleshy lappets (of the same pinkish colour as the naked head, cere, 
and feet) on the sides of the neck, is brown, with blackish wings and 
tail, varied by white down on the thighs and chest; a brown ruff 
covers the hind-neck, while the bill and irides are yellow. 0. calvus, 
the smaller Pondicherry- or King-Vulture of India, Burma, and 
Siam, is black. These birds usually hunt in pairs, driving all 
intruders except Eagles from their prey: they construct immense 
stick nests, often used in successive years, on thick bushes or trees ; 
straw, leaves, and the lke being added for ning, and one white 
ege, often with red-brown markings, deposited. Gyps fulvus, the 
Griffon Vulture, which has occurred in Germany, Poland, and once’ 
in Britain, breeds from the Spanish Pyrenees through Southern 
Europe and Northern Africa, reaching lat. 50° N. in Russia, and 
extending eastward to North India, by way of Turkestan, where 
it overlaps the larger form G. himalayensis. It is fawn-brown 
above and streaky buff below, with nearly black wings and tail, the 
adults having a downy white ruff, represented in the young by a 
brown collar; the head is thinly covered with white hairs, the 
beak is horn-coloured with blue-black cere, the feet are plumbeous, 
the irides orange. This active though cowardly species is often 
seen basking on rocks at mid-day; it flies or hovers with easy 
movements, and can soar until it almost disappears in the sky. It 
has a growling note. The nest,a mass of sticks and grass of vari- 
able size, is placed on cliffs, and contains one or even two white 
egos, sometimes with rusty markings. Incubation lasts forty days, 
the young remaining three months in the nest. G. kolbi of South 
Africa is much paler; G. riippelli, of the north-east and south of 
