VULTURES AND EAVENS 3 



numbers, consequent upon the plentiful supply of food 

 during the rinderpest, and the subsequent falling off in 

 this food supply owing to the eradication of the epidemic. 

 Mr. Claude Taylor gives prominence to this serious new 

 phase in the economy of the Vulture, in the June number 

 of the Journal of the South African Ornithologists' Union. 



The South African Griffon Vulture is generally of a 

 pale ashy-brown colour, the tail and primary wing- 

 feathers being black ; but the coloration of the bird varies 

 considerably, young specimens being darker and old birds 

 being almost white. It usually nests in krantzes (cliffs) 

 in the Orange River Colony, constructing a rough saucer- 

 shaped nest of sticks on a ledge of rock, or on a boulder. 

 They are sometimes placed within easy access on a rocky 

 hillside, and sometimes on steep cliffs, where they can 

 only be reached by means of a rope suspended from above. 

 Years before the war we visited several suet nesting sites 

 and found them strewn with the skeletons and feathers 

 of the Vultures. They lay one egg in July or August, 

 usually of a dirty white colour, but sometimes marked 

 with a few brown spots. 



In the Pretoria district they also build in trees, and the 

 Transvaal Museum contains a huge nest of sticks, placed 

 in the fork of a mimosa, containing a half-fledged young 

 bird. Quite a number of these young Vultures were 

 brought to the Pretoria Zoological Gardens from the 

 same locality. 



The White-necked Raven breeds on a shelving rock or 

 in a hole, on the face of a krantz in some wooded kloof, 

 making a nest of sticks and lining it with fibres, and hair 

 of dassies (Procavid) and hares. It lays, during the 

 months of November to January, three eggs of a bluish- 

 white colour, marked with various shades of brown. 



