GRIFFON VULTURE. 3 



extraordinary extent of vision. Their flight is rather 

 marked by a sustaining strength than great rapidity ; the 

 latter quality being more particularly required by those 

 birds which pursue and prey on living animals. The 

 more straightened claws of the Vultures, unlike those 

 of the Falcons, do not enable them generally to grasp 

 and bear away the carrion to their young ; but, more 

 or less restrained in these pow r ers according to the species, 

 most of them devour their meal on the spot where they 

 find it, and conveying it away in their craw, disgorge it 

 when they arrive at their nest. 



It will be one of the objects of this History to trace 

 our British Birds, throughout all the various countries 

 in which they are found, and thus to show, as far as 

 has been yet observed, the extent of the range of each 

 species. 



I am indebted to the kindness of Admiral Bowles for 

 the first notice of the capture in Ireland of the Griffon 

 Vulture, of which the engraved figure at the commence- 

 ment of this article is a representation. In the autumn 

 of 1843, while Admiral Bowles was in command on 

 the Cork station, on his visiting Lord Shannon, at 

 Castle Martyr, near the Cove of Cork, he saw there 

 this Vulture which had been caught by a youth on the 

 rocks near Cork Harbour, in the spring of that year. 

 The bird had been brought to Castle Martyr for sale, 

 and was purchased by Lord Shannon's keeper for half- 

 a-crown. The bird was full grown; the plumage per- 

 fect, without any of the appearances consequent upon 

 confinement; there was no reason to suspect that the 

 bird had escaped from any ship ; it was very wild and 

 savage, and was in perfect health. Not long afterwards 

 Mr. Thompson observes in the Annals of Natural His- 

 tory already quoted, "his Lordship politely offered the 



