238 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



were the outcome of mere volition apart from any 

 muscular effort. Eagles, too, are admirable on the 

 wing, but, though Byron declares that a flock of 

 twelve of them appeared in honour of his visit to 

 Parnassus, they do not usually occur in flights, and 

 their wings have hardly the perfection of outline of 

 those of vultures in which the upward curvature of 

 the outer ends is so strongly marked. Almost every 

 day, especially during winter, numbers of the white- 

 backed vulture, Pseudogyps bengalensis, are to be 

 seen hanging aloft against the pale blue of the sky ; 

 some of them at heights at which the fingered 

 extremities of their great wings, and even the white 

 bands of their downy ruffs, are distinctly visible, and 

 above these a series of others at higher and higher 

 levels, until at the very visual limit they show as 

 mere specks, appearing and disappearing as they 

 sink or rise in the upper air. The sight is one that 

 can hardly fail to be attractive however familiar it 

 may be, but is hardly so impressive as that of a troop 

 of vultures seen from above, and while the great birds 

 sweep and sail over the depths of a great Himalayan 

 valley, now skirting low along the surfaces of the 

 bounding slopes, and anon soaring outwards over 

 thousands of feet of sheer air in a way that rouses 

 wonder how it is that the sudden transition does not 

 inevitably cause overpowering dizziness. 



Even at close quarters white-backed vultures are 

 not wholly wanting in good points ; their attitudes 



