VULTURES 



enjoys the happy feeling which comes of a good 

 digestion. 



About eleven o'clock — after hunting, eating and 

 resting for about five hours — he flies to a tree-top 

 and surveys the country round about. 



I have often heard it argued that the vulture scents 

 the kill from the sky, but have proved to my own 

 satisfaction that it is sight and not scent that guides him. 



On one occasion a zebra was killed, as the porters 

 were in want of food. There was not a cloud in the 

 sky, not a bird in the air so far as I could see; but 

 we had hardly slain the animal and taken what was 

 wanted when, looking up, I saw a black dot in the sky. 

 Suddenly it dropped. Another and another appeared, 

 and then began a pretty scene of vultures wheeling 

 in the air. Spinning round and round like tops, the 

 birds descended until the whole crowd reached the 

 ground and went straight for the remains of the dead 

 zebra. 



On the next occasion I covered the kill with grass. 

 Not a vulture appeared, but not many minutes after 

 I had uncovered it, the birds descended with the 

 spinning- top movement. 



Vultures gorge heavily, and I have come across 

 them hardly able to move, so loaded down were their 

 crops. They had to run for forty or fifty yards, like 

 an aeroplane, in order to " take off," so to speak, before 

 they could rise in the air. 



217 



