THE VULTURES. 13 



leaves it before sunrise and it sits hour after hour, 

 motionless and noiseless, waiting for her return. 

 Noon may be on before it descries her, a mere speck 

 in the sky, but growing bigger every moment as she 

 slopes down towards the nest. At last, with heavy 

 flapping, she lets herself down, and great is the cack- 

 ling, for though she carries nothing in her beak, the 

 youngster knows that she is loaded. What follows 

 is not polite. In plain language she disgorges great 

 lumps of meat and thrusts them into its mouth. A 

 crow sits close by, mindful of the proverb that there's 

 many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip. A vulture 

 cannot feed her young in any other way than this, 

 for the carcase on which she dined may be ten miles 

 away. And indeed I never saw a vulture carrying 

 food, or anything else, except a stick for its nest, and 

 that in its beak. All other birds of prey carry with 

 their feet, but this is impossible to the vulture because 

 it is incapable of swooping and cannot even rise off 

 the ground without taking a run. Once fairly in the 

 air, no bird surpasses the majesty of its flight. 

 The question has often been hotly discussed whether 

 birds can sail without flapping their wings. The 

 difficulty originated of course with somebody of 

 that unfortunate class who must reason about 

 questions of fact instead of looking. He demons- 

 trated that such a feat was impossible. The vultures 

 kept en doing it all the same, and any one may 

 watch them. For hours together they will sail in 

 circles, or rather in spirals, without the slightest 

 motion of their wings, beyond trimming them to 

 the wind, like the sails of a boat. Of course there 

 must be a wind, 



