510. ORNITHOLOGICAL SKETCHES 
the Jordan, the other between Nazarethand Jaffa. This bird 
is unusually confiding in its behaviour towards man. 
19. NEOPHRON PERCNOPTERUS. Heyptian Vulture. 
More or less common throughout Egypt, and everywhere 
distributed in Cairo and its neighbourhood. Near the towns 
of Upper and Lower Hgypt one sees it sitting on the sand- 
banks along the Nile watching for stranded carrion. Both 
within and without the towns this Vulture is very audacious, 
but can perfectly distinguish the HKuropeans, who murder 
everything, from the Arabs, who protect it because it cleans 
the neighbourhood from carrion and dirt. In Palestine it is 
common, and even in the uninhabited districts of the Jordan 
valley is the unfailing attendant of every encampment. There 
it is much tamer than in Heypt, and we saw Carrion Vultures 
going about among the tents looking for kitchen scraps. 
20. NEOPHRON PILEATUS. Pileated Vulture. 
The Pileated Vulture was observed in Upper Egypt. We 
had laid out a carcass on a sandbank of the Nile for the pur- 
pose of shooting large Vultures. At first several Egyptian 
Vultures appeared, and soon afterwards three of these birds ; 
but they were the only ones seen during the whole journey. 
21. Vuttur Fuutvus. Griffon Vulture. 
The first Griffon Vultures which I saw in Africa were at 
Cairo. There these great birds of prey may be observed 
circling over the town almost daily. They came with great 
regularity from the Mokattam hills to the city, and I once saw 
them at a carcass in quite incredible numbers. Frightened 
by the constant pursuit of the Europeans, they neither pass 
the night nor nest in the precipices of those hills, but, aceord- 
ing to reliable obser ations, fly off every evening as far as the 
Akaba mountains on the Red Sea, near the town of Suez, and 
