476 ORNITHOLOGICAL SKETCHES 
lV; 
THE EGYPTIAN VULTURE 
(Neophron percnopterus). 
Ix order that the entire group of the Huropean Vultures 
may be included in my remarks, I have still to append my 
notes on Neophron percnopterus, the Heyptian Vulture. 
Never having had an opportunity of observing this vulture 
ina state of freedom in Eastern Europe, I was all the more 
eager to study it in Spain. There it is the commonest and 
most generally distributed bird of prey, and, excepting in the 
highly cultivated district of Barcelona, is everywhere to be 
found, though never in great numbers. Still detached pairs 
inhabit all parts of the country, in just the proportion that 
each district admits of. 
The Kgyptian Vulture is the bird of Islam, for its way of 
living adapts itself to that of the Mohammedans. Where the 
Crescent still holds sway, there it also is at home; and where, 
as in Spain, the Orientals once dwelt, and only their vices 
and none of their many virtues now remain as a remembrance 
of better days, there also the Hgyptian Vulture is in its true 
element. There is no bird whose habits are, on close inspec- 
tion, found to be more repulsive than those of the Neophron. 
In its whole being, too, there is but little that reminds one of 
the raptorial birds, and even its appearance is in keeping with 
its way of living, while its flight is a curious blending of that 
