EGYPTIAN VULTURE. 3 



liigli degree of temperature induces rapid decomposition. 

 Their food is chiefly animal substance in a decaying state, 

 and their business in nature, as observed by Mr. Vigors, is 

 to clear away with rapidity those putrifying remains which, 

 if allowed to accumulate, might produce pestilence and 

 death. The same services rendered to man by numerous 

 Storks in the cities of India, and by troops of dogs in Con- 

 stantinople, are performed on a much more extended scale 

 by Vultures. So valuable are these services, that Vultures 

 are almost universally protected from molestation or injury 

 either by local legislation or by common consent. Great 

 powers of smell have been attributed to them ; and it appears 

 certain that they possess also extraordinary extent of vision. 

 Their flight is rather marked by a sustaining strength than 

 great rapidity ; the latter quality being more particularly 

 required by those birds which pursue and prey on living 

 animals. The more straightened claws of the Vultures, un- 

 like those of the Falcons, do not enable them generally to 

 grasp and bear away the camon to their young ; but, more 

 or less restrained in these powers according to the species, 

 most of them devour their meal on the spot where they find 

 it, and conveying it away in their craw, disgorge it when 

 they arrive at their nest. 



It will be one of the objects of this History to trace our 

 British Birds throughout all the various countries in which 

 they are found, and thus to show, as far as has been yet 

 observed, the extent of the range of each species. 



The Egyptian Vulture is included by Le Vaillant in his 

 Birds of Southern Africa. He found it occasionally at the 

 Cape, and still more numerous in the interior : it has also been 

 obtained by naturalists in the same localities up to the present 

 time. It is there called by various names which signify White 

 Crow, the name referring to the adult bird. Le Vaillant 



B % 



