484 ORNITHOLOGICAL SKETCHES 
Vulture. It was an adult that had already been long in 
confinement, and was so tame that it quietly allowed itself 
to be touched. Its plumage—as it generally does in cap- 
tivity—had lost the beautiful bright yellow, and both breast 
and belly had turned silver-grey, while the dark black feathers 
had also become greyer. I saw a similar specimen in the 
Jardin des Plantes at Paris. 
Both my captive Bearded Vultures, the old bird as well as 
the young one, bore the sea-voyage quite well, but in rough 
weather they took no food. The diet that suited them best 
was dead creatures of all sort, with the skin, hair, or 
feathers left on, which go to form their castings. Bones, 
however, are their favourite delicacy, and my old bird 
crushed the strongest beef-bones with incredible strength. 
One day I put a live rabbit into his cage. Like lightning 
he seized the poor beast with one foot, but did not squeeze it 
in the least, for he was quite sated, and only wanted to play 
with it. The game, however, turned out a somewhat grim 
one: for with his sharp beak he worked up and down the 
unlucky rabbit, and literally shore the whole fur from its body 
right up to its forehead. This he swallowed, and then let 
the animal slip out between the bars of the cage, clean-shaved, 
but otherwise uninjured. 
My Bearded Vulture was perfectly tame and quite com- 
posed under all circumstances. I never saw him either excited 
or frightened. He did not pay the slightest attention to dogs, 
even when they came close up to him, nor was he alarmed at 
the bustle on deck, and when anybody approached him he 
seemed particularly pleased and at once stretched out his head. 
In the repose and deliberation of his movements he struck 
me as differing greatly from the many eagles which I have 
either kept myself or seen in confinement; for he had none of 
the vivacity or irritability which is daily exhibited even by 
