4A, 
be sufficient to account for the belief, (above noticed), which I 
have found prevalent in many parts of the Himalayahs, and 
which is general to this day in Hurope. 
Mr. Tristram says, “ Incidentally as natural history is men- 
tioned in Holy Scripture, yet even there we have ten distinct 
Hebrew names for raptoral birds, several of which are at once 
recognizable in the vernacular Arabic of the country. They are 
first, “ peres” 7. e. ‘the breaker,’ translated in our version. 
‘ Ossifrage,’ a name, admirably adapted to express the remark- 
able and well-known habit of the Lammergeyer, of dropping its 
prey, whether mammals, serpents, but especially tortoises, from 
great heights to break their bones or shells.” 
“ Although the name has been applied in modern scientific 
nomenclature to one of the eagles, there can be no doubt but 
that the Ossifraga of the Latin authors, and of the authorized 
version, is to be identified with the Gypaete.” 
In the Himalayahs, these birds are not difficult to snare. Mr. 
R. Thompson mentions that he has often caught them, and 
that quite recently, seeing a pair come down, to the carcase of a 
cow, he went and laid a few snares round it and caught both 
birds in little more than an hour. 
Even if our bird be specifically different from the European 
one, it is so closely allied to it, that anything in regard to the 
nidification of the latter, must be interesting to us. Dr. Bree 
gives us the following account:— 
“'The Lammergeyer builds in places equally inaccessible to 
naturalists, and bullets! Its nest is genious; the substratum 
is formed of a mass of straw, fern and stalks, lymg upon a 
number of sticks and branches laid cross ways one upon another. 
The nest, which rests upon the under-layer, is composed of 
branches woven into the shape of a wreath, and lined with 
down and moss, and the contents of this part alone, would fill 
the largest hay cloth. Very early in the year, the female lays 
three or four large white eggs, spotted with brown, of which 
only two generally are hatched. The young birds are covered 
with a whitish down, and their huge ill-proportioned crops and 
maws, give them an ugly and shapeless appearance.”’ 
I must confess that I regard the moss and down, and 
wreath of branches, (why not of “roses” at once?) in the 
above extract as somewhat apocryphal. I cannot say that 
I have, as yet, met with any Vulturine birds of prey indulging 
in this goldfinch type of architecture. I also doubt the four 
eggs, although it is possible that, according to the Rev. H. 
Tristram’s hypothesis (that where particular birds are very rare, 
they lay more eggs than where they are common), European 
