VULTURES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 343 



several stories, or tiers, " and that these birds were ever 

 ready to hurry downwards at the sight of prey, from 

 their topmost region, in the sevenfold heaven"* 

 and the vulture, as we know, among the ancient 

 Egyptians was not only tolerated, but was held in high 

 veneration as a sacred bird and in the hieroglyphics 

 upon some of the most ancient tombs, the figure of 

 the seated vulture is constantly portrayed with such 

 fidelity as to prevent the possibility of mistaking it 

 for any other bird. 



The rapid way in which vultures^ will pick the 

 skeleton of a large animal perfectly clean, all except 

 the bones, is well known ; Mr. H. A. Bryden for 

 instance, in South Africa, where they are very numer- 

 ous, says he " has seen two large elands as big as cows 

 picked clean in a few hours. The numbers and eat- 

 ing capacity of these birds in a wild country, where 

 they are not in the habit of dining each day (he 

 states) seem to be illimitable. " f 



At Bombay, where the Parsees expose their dead, 

 to be consumed by vultures, in what are known as 

 the " Towers of Silence" erected on Malabar Hill, the 

 guardians have assured us that within two hours after 

 the exposure of a body the process is complete, and 

 that in times of cholera and other outbreaks of malig- 

 nant disease among the human population of Bombay, 

 the system still works with unabated efficiency, and 

 no deleterious effect is produced upon the vultures; 

 hundreds of whom may be seen sitting on trees, in 

 the piece of wild ground that surrounds these towers, 



* See Professor Georg Schweinfurth's Heart of Africa, 1874, Vol. 

 ii, p. 232. 



| Gun and Camera in South Africa, by H. A. Bryden, 1893, p. 645. 



