42. VULTURID^. 



fissures of high, rocky cliffs. Like most of the species, the 

 number of eggs is generally two or three. During incubation 

 the male keeps watch at the entrance of the cave. It has been 

 wisely observed of this gigantic species that it is a " fit natural 

 machine for assisting in the clearance of the soil of Africa from 

 the putrid bodies of elephants, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, 

 and giraffes." It haunts the caverns of rocks, and is altogether 

 a mountain bird — although it feeds on the carrion scattered on 

 the plains below. Its nights are spent among the lofty crags, 

 where it retires to repose when it has sated it appetite. 



Levaillant saw large flocks of them perched at sunrise on the 

 precipitous entrances to their abodes, and sometimes the rocky 

 region was marked by a continuous chain of these birds. Their 

 tails are worn down by friction against their craggy haunts, and 

 by the soil of the plains in their laborious efforts to raise them- 

 selves into the air, especially when nearly gorged with carrion. 

 But when on the wing their flight is grand and powerful. 

 They wheel higher and higher up their aerial vault, till their 

 great bulk is lost to human ken. Like a stone cast upon the 

 unruffled face of a lake slumbering in the bosom of the 

 mountains, so does the vulture, like a living stone cast upwards 

 against the azure face of the sky, ever widen the receding circle 

 of its upward flight, until, like the spent rings on the lake, they 

 become gradually attenuated till lost in the blue vault above. 

 And as Shakespeare beautifully says in " Timon of Athens" — 



"Nolevell'd malice 

 Infects one comma in the course I hold, 

 But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on, 

 Leaving no track behind." 



But though beyond the range of human vision, the natural 

 telescope of the vulture is at work. The moment any animal 

 within the wide sweep of that piercing eye sinks to the earth in 

 death, the imperceptible vulture detects, and swoops down 

 upon it. 



Does the hunter bring down some large quadruped beyond his 

 powers to remove, and leave it to obtain help ? On his return, 

 however speedy, he finds it surrounded by a flock of vultures, 

 where not one was seen but a quarter of an hour before. In his 

 " Thalaba, the Destroyer," Southey gives a dreary but true 

 picture of the longing of a parched wanderer in the desert : — 



" Oh, for the vulture's scream, 

 Who haunts for prey the abode of mankind ! 

 Oh, for the plover's pleasant cry, 

 To tell of water near. " 



