124 



CHAPTER VII. 



Vultures. Loathsome Feeders. Strength of. Snake- Eater. - 

 Mode of Killing Serpents. Hawks. Character of. Hawking 

 for Bustards. Value of. Iceland Falcons much Prized. Fal- 

 conry in former days. Contest with Herons. Modes of Catch- 

 ing. The Sparrow-Hawk. Anecdotes. The Glead, or Kite. 

 Herons. Food of the Hawk Tribe. Their Disposition. The 

 Hawks sacred to the Egyptians and Turks. 



VULTURES are nearly allied to the Eagles in point of 

 size and some of their habits ; they yet differ from them 

 considerably in others : generally speaking, they may be 

 easily distinguished by the head and part of the neck 



being either quite 

 naked or covered 

 with a short down. 

 Instead of ranging 

 over hill and valley 

 in pursuit of living 

 game, they confine 

 their search to dead 

 and putrefying car- 

 cases, which they 

 prefer: and justly 

 merit, by the vo- 

 racity with which 

 they devour the most offensive carrion, the name of 

 Scavengers, in some countries where they are never 

 destroyed, in consequence of the good they do, by 

 consuming the bodies of animals that might, but for the 

 assistance of the Vultures, breed a pestilence in the hot 

 climates where they most abound. A traveller in Africa 

 having killed two buffaloes, and directed his party to cut 

 them up piecemeal, and hang the various joints on the 

 branches round their tents, that they might be dried up 

 under the scorching beams of a burning sun, found him- 

 self suddenly surrounded by a flight of these birds, who 



The Vulture. 



