$8 A HISTORY OF 



but or. the tail it is more faint, and deeper near the hedd. The fea 

 thers are black on the back ; and on the wings and tail, of a yellowish 

 brown Others of the kind differ from this colour and dimensions ; 

 but they are all strong!}' marked by their naked heads, and beak 

 straight in the beginning, but hooking at the point. 



They are still more strongly marked by their nature, which, as has 

 been observed, is cruel, unclean, and indolent. Their sense of smell- 

 ing, however, is amazingly great ; and nature, for this purpose, has 

 given them two large apertures or nostrils without, and an extensive 

 olfactory membrane within. Their intestines are formed differently 

 from those of the eagle kind ; for they partake more of the formatiou 

 of such birds as live upon grain. They have both a crop and a sto- 

 mach, which may be regarded as a kind of gizzard, from the extreme 

 thickness of the muscles of which it is composed. In fact, tney seen* 

 adapted inwardly, not only for being carnivorous, but to eat corn, of 

 whatsoever of that kind comes in their way. 



This bird, which is common in many parts of Europe, and but too 

 well known on the western continent, is totally unknown in England. 

 In Egypt, Arabia, and many other kingdoms of Africa and Asia, vul- 

 tures are found in great abundance. The inside down of their wing 

 is converted into a very warm and comfortable kind of fur, and is 

 commonly sold in the Asiatic markets. 



Indeed, in Egypt, this bird seerns to be of singular service. There 

 are great flocks of them in the neighbourhood of Grand Cairo, which 

 no person is permitted to destroy. The service they render the in- 

 habitants, is the devouring all the carrion and filth of that great city, 

 which might o-therwise tend to corrupt and putrefy the air. They are 

 commonly seen in company with the wild dogs of the country, tearing 

 a carcass very deliberately together. This odd association produces 

 no quarrels ; the birds and quadrupeds seem to live amicably, and 

 nothing but harmony subsists between them. The wonder is still the 

 greater, as both are extremely rapacious, and both lean and bony to a 

 very great degree ; probably having no great plenty even of the 

 wretched food on which they subsist. 



In America they lead a life somewhat similar. Wherever the hun- 

 ters, who there only pursue beasts for their skins, are found to go, 

 these birds are seen to pursue them. They still keep hovering at 

 a little distance, and when they see the beast flead and abandoned, 

 they call out to each other, pour down upon the carcass, and in an 

 instant, pick its bones as bare and clean as if they had been scraped 

 by a knife 



At the Cape of Good Hope, in Africa, they seem to discover a still 

 greater share of dexterity in their methods of carving. " I have," 

 says Kolben, " been often a spectator of the manner in which they 

 have anatomized a dead body : I say anatomized, for no artist in thfc 

 world could have done it more cleanly. They have a wondeuul me- 

 thod of separating the flesh from the bones, and yet leaving the skin 

 quite entire. Upon coming near the carcass, one would not suppose 

 it thus deprived of its internal substance, till he began to examine it 

 more closely ; he then finds it, literally speaking, nothing but skin and 

 bone. Their manner of performing the operation is this : they first 



