40 VULTURID7K. 



The VuLTURiDiE. 



The vultures, which form one of the typical families of the 

 order raptores, are distinguished by having the head more or 

 less divested of feathers, possibly to facilitate their forbidding 

 system of gorging their carrion food, as a whaler would have his 

 arm bare to let him dig easier into the blubber. 



In Henry IV., when Pistol brings the news of the old King's 

 death, and that Falstaff s " tender lambkin (young Prince Hal) 

 is King," and when Palstalf, elated, exclaims, " Happy are they 

 which have been my friends ; and woe to my Lord Chief- 

 Justice" Pistol aptly rejoins, " Let vultures vile seize on his 

 lungs also." And in Henry VI., when alluding to the same 

 dead King, Henry V., in the words of a true poet, Shakespeare 

 makes Sir William Lucy exclaim — 



" Thus, while the vulture of sedition 

 Feeds in the bosom of such great commanders, 

 Sleeping neglection doth betray to loss 

 The conquest of our scarce cold conqueror, 

 That ever-living man of memory, 

 Henry the Fifth." 



The bill is straight at the base, and covered with a cere — 

 either thinly covered with hair or naked — plain, or carunculated, 

 with wattles, like a turkey cock. Their legs are muscular, and 

 generally short ; the tarsi and feet naked — the latter armed 

 with strong but not very hooked talons or claws. They subsist 

 chiefly on carrion and decomposing animal matter ; but those 

 which come nearest the true type — the Falconidce — occasionally 

 prey upon life. They are mostly all inhabitants of warm 

 regions, where they act as scavengers — a very important and 

 salutary part in the wise economy of Nature — in these hot 

 climates, by clearing the surface of noxious and putrid remains 

 of animal life. Their wings are ample and powerful, and their 

 flight, which can be long sustained, is generally in wide circles, 

 wheeling round and round, broader and higher, to have a 

 greater sweep and altitude, from whence their telescopic eyes 

 can pierce the farthest distance in search of food. 



It was long, and so far justly, thought that it was the power 

 of scent which directed this class of birds to their putrifying 

 food ; but, although they do possess this faculty in a high 

 degree of excellence — for Nature is no niggard of her gifts when 

 she has a purpose to fulfil — yet it is more due to their keen and 

 piercing eye, by which their useful mission on the earth is so 



