168 FIFTEEN DAYS ON THE DANUBE. 



Servian mountains, which, lit up by the afternoon sun, were 

 shining in their loveliest colours, while from the vale below 

 me sounded the tinkling of the cattle-bells and the merry 

 shouts of the herdsmen ringing up into the hills. 



I must have been quite close to the outskirts of the woods, 

 and I fancy that this was undoubtedly the furthest point 

 reached by us during all our excursions in the Fruska-Gora. 

 One of the Cinereous Vultures was circling round the hill- 

 tops, and seemed to have already become quite unsuspicious ; 

 but though I sometimes heard the rush of its wings, and its 

 croaking cry, yet it did not approach the nest for a good half- 

 hour. 



Several times it seemed to me as if there was a smaller 

 bird in company with the vulture, and I was thinking 

 whether it could be an eagle, when all at once my attention 

 was attracted by a tremendous rush above my head. It was 

 not at all like the steady wing-beats of an approaching 

 vulture, but much the same sort of noise as one often hears 

 out chamois-shooting, when a stone, loosened by the game, 

 rolls down a precipice. This sound came nearer and nearer, 

 and suddenly I saw a ball, formed of two birds entangled 

 together with their huge wings hanging loosely down. At 

 first I did not know- what to make of the whole affair, for this 

 extraordinary apparition instantly vanished, and I heard it 

 heavily strike the nest, from the edge of which such quantities 

 of twigs were falling, that, sitting as I was so very close to 

 the tree, I could not look up without getting some of them in 

 my face. 



There I sat in utter amazement, while the disturbance 

 inside the nest kept increasing, for I had no idea of what was 

 going on above me, and more than a minute must have passed 

 before I cautiously looked up, and saw at one time the great 

 wing of a Cinereous Vulture, and at another a smaller pinion 

 projecting from the nest. At last the bald head of the 



