VULTURES. 



643 



Vulture. In depicting it in such very dark colours, his desire 

 seems to be to contrast it with the Eagle, which he had repre- 

 sented as the highest type of courage and nobility ; and he has 

 evidently yielded to the temptation to make the contrast between 

 the two birds as striking as possible. The idea of this antithesis 

 must, in fact, have led Buffon's mind astray, as he was often more 

 fond of figure than fact. The Vulture seeks after carcasses because 

 it ^really prefers them to living prey; and its not attacking 

 living animals, like the rest of the family, is caused by the fact 



Fig. 304. The Yellow Vulture ( Vultur fuivus). 



that it is neither armed nor organised for such an attack. It 

 obeys the irresistible and ordained instincts of its nature, and in 

 this we have no right to discover any feeling of cowardice. In 

 the present day it is really time to have done with all these time- 

 worn rhetorical fancies of the old naturalists, which are in con- 

 tinual and complete variance with the results of science and 

 observation. 



