n8 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



plumage in these Griffon Vultures was more thoroughly studied. 

 Unfortunately for science, the habits of the Griffons and the 

 food they eat, or rather, perhaps, the condition in which they 

 eat it, renders the preservation of Vultures such an unsavoury 

 task that it is very difficult to get any naturalist to undertake 

 the task of preserving a series of specimens. My friend the 

 late Mr. W. Davison, who skinned many Vultures, told me 

 ihat he always poured a good dose of carbolic acid into the 

 gullet of the birds, before he dared to attempt the task of 

 skinning them. Anyone who sees the Bengal Vultures (Pseudo- 

 gyps bengalcnsis) sitting on the Towers of Silence in Bombay, 

 row upon row, packed tightly side by side, and knows the 

 name of the food that distends their crops, may be excused 

 from wishing to make a Museum specimen of them, even 

 if he saw that their state of plumage was interesting, or abso- 

 lutely necessary to be described for a proper understanding of 

 the life-history of the species. 



Range in Great Britain. A very rare and occasional visitor. 

 Though rumours are afloat that other Griffon Vultures have 

 been seen and recognised by competent observers, whose testi- 

 mony would be received without hesitation by all ornitholo- 

 gists, there is but a single example which is so far authenticated 

 as British. In the spring of 1843, a specimen, which Mr. 

 Howard Saunders affirms to be a young bird (i.e. a bird of 

 the previous year), was caught by a boy on the rocks near Cork 

 Harbour, and was presented by Lord Shannon to the Museum 

 of Trinity College, Dublin, where it still remains. 



Range outside the British Islands. A bird like the Griffon, 

 which undoubtedly wanders far in search of food, and, an 

 absentee from a district on one day, is present on the next in 

 numbers, if a battle has taken place, and food is plentiful, is 

 not the easiest bird of which to trace the exact geographical dis- 

 tribution. Furthermore, much of our information is a matter 

 of conjecture, as few people bring back skins of the Vultures 

 they see, that identification may be rendered certain. 



The Indian Griffon is allowed to be a separate race or sub- 

 species under the name of Gyps fulyescens, Hume, but its 

 range is very doubtfully determined, and so the eastern limits 

 of the Griffon of Europe is still a matter of conjecture. 



