410 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 



Cinereous Vulture, having often seen that species in con- 

 finement. 



On the same day, some hours later, I was driving through 

 another part of the same forest when I saw a Cinereous 

 Vulture sitting on the dead top of a gnarled old oak. It 

 allowed the carriage to come up without moving, and did not 

 fly off until a second trap, which was closely following us, 

 reached the tree. Next day, however, there was nothing 

 more to be seen of this rare visitor. 



The Cinereous Vulture only occurs in the woods of the 

 Godollo estate at rare intervals. According to the perfectly 

 trustworthy statements of the head forester Dittrich, it is 

 always to be seen when an epidemic breaks out among 

 the cattle. The Hungarian peasants have a bad habit of 

 throwing the dead beasts outside the villages and of burying 

 them either in a very slovenly fashion or not at all. This 

 dainty food attracts the Vultures ; and it once happened that 

 during a great murrain, some years ago, a keeper saw twelve 

 of these birds collected round a carcass at the edge of a 

 wood. 



In September of the year 1879 there occurred among the 

 cattle an epidemic which was quite unimportant and confined 

 to a single village. Again one of the keepers saw five 

 Cinereous Vultures sitting on the old dead oaks of a thinly 

 wooded hillside above that very village. 



This last case seems to me worthy of attention, and I can- 

 not help asking myself how the Cinereous Vultures which 

 appeared in the Godb'llo district knew of this trifling outbreak 

 of a disease which merely prevailed in one village ; for in 

 our country the true habitat of this bird only begins in Sla- 

 vonia on the right bank of the Danube, while throughout 

 Southern Hungary it is of very rare occurrence. Between 

 this latter region, however, and the woods around Godollo 

 there still intervenes a considerable distance. 



