4 BRITISH BIRDS. 
VULTUR FULVUS. 
GRIFFON VULTURE. 
(PLatE 1.) 
Vultur fulvus, Briss. Orn. i. p. 462 (1760); Gerint, Orn. Meth. Dig. i. p. 43, pl. x. 
(1767); et auctorum plurimorum—Gimelin, Temminck, Gould, Naumann, 
(Gray), (Newton), (Sharpe), &e. 
Vultur trencalos, Bechst. Nat. Deutsch!. ii. p. 491 (1805). 
Vultur castaneus, Steph. Shaw's Gen. Zool. vii. pt. i. p. 29, pl. xii. (1809). 
Gyps vulgaris, Sav. Syst. Ois. de V Egypte, p. 11 (1810). 
Vultur leucocephalus, Wolf, Taschenb. i. p. 7 (1810). 
Vultur vulgaris (Sav.), Bonn. et Vieil. Enc. Méth, iii. p. 1170 (1823). 
Vultur persicus, Pall. Zoogr. Rosso-As. i. p. 877 (1826). 
Vultur albicollis, Brehm, Vog. Deutschl. p. 1010 (1831). 
Vultur chassefiente, Riipp. Neue Wirbelth. Vog. p, 47 (1835). 
Gyps fulvus (Briss.), Gray, Gen. B. i. p. 6 (1844). 
Vultur fulvus occidentalis, Schlegel, Rev. Crit. p. xii (1844). 
Gyps occidentalis, Bonap, Consp. i. p. 10 (1850). 
Vultur egyptius, Licht. Nomencl. Av. p. 1 (1854). 
Vultur fulvus orientalis, Schlegel, Mus. Pays-Bas, ii. Vultures, p. 6 (1862). 
Gyps hispaniolensis, Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. i. p. 6 (1874). 
The claim of the Griffon Vulture to rank as a British bird rests on a 
single instance of its capture. This specimen was obtained by a youth 
on the rocks of Cork Harbour, Ireland; and its occurrence was recorded 
in ‘ Yarrell’s British Birds, on the authority of Admiral Bowles. In the 
autumn of 1843 he was visiting Lord Shannon, at Castle Martyr, and 
there saw the bird, which had been purchased from the lad who captured 
it. The example was in fully adult plumage and in good condition, and 
reported as being very wild and savage and in perfect health. The 
bird was preserved after its death, and placed in the Trinity College 
Museum, in Dublin. 
The breeding-range of the Griffon Vulture may be said to be the basin 
of the Mediterranean, Caspian, and Red Seas. Large colonies are 
found in the Pyrenees and in the mountains of Spain, Sardinia, and 
Sicily. In the Alps they are rarer, and in the Carpathians still more so; 
but in the mountains of Bulgaria, Greece, and Asia Minor they are ex- 
tremely abundant. In the Caucasus and the Southern Urals small colonies 
are found. St. John states that in Persia they breed in great numbers in 
the lofty limestone cliffs north of Shiraz; and Severtzow records it as a 
resident in Turkestan, where its breeding-range overlaps that of G. hima- 
layensis. Colonies of Griffons are found in all the mountains of Africa 
north of the Sahara, from Morocco to the Red Sea, as far south as Nubia. 
In the northern portion of its range it is a partial migrant, stragglers 
being occasionally found throughout Europe south of the Baltic; but in 
