VULTURES, EAGLES, ETC. 239 



when at rest are certainly ungainly, but, at the 

 same time, are sometimes highly picturesque ; and, 

 although the bare skin of the head and neck may 

 be repulsive to casual observation, it is, when clean, 

 and especially during the breeding season, possessed 

 of a beauty of its own that could hardly be imagined 

 from its aspect when faded and dried in museum- 

 specimens. In the fresh state it is a mass of subdued 

 but splendid colour. The crop-patch is beautiful 

 purplish black, and has a satiny sheen from the 

 presence of a thin layer of long black hairs that 

 clothe the surface and veil the pinkish-brown skin 

 beneath; the middle third of the neck is pale 

 madder-brown, and the upper third slaty grey tinged 

 with purple; the upper eyelids are bluish pink, the 

 blue tint predominating along the margins, which are 

 fringed by long black lashes ; and the upper mandible 

 is of a beautiful pale sea-green, shading off into 

 purplish black at the base and edges. It is hardly 

 possible to look at a freshly killed specimen in all this 

 splendour of rich colouring without thinking of the 

 dragon in George Macdonald's " Phantastes," and, 

 like the hero of the tale, wondering " how so many 

 gorgeous colours, so many curving lines, and such 

 beautiful things as wings and hair and scales com- 

 bine to form the horrible creature," for, to a certain 

 degree, a vulture is almost always more or less 

 horrible at close quarters. Horrible beyond measure 

 they certainly are whilst gorging over the corpse of 



