462 ORNITHOLOGICAL SKETCHES 



II. 



THE GRIFFON VULTURE 



(Vultur fulvus). 



IN my paper on the Cinereous Vulture I devoted a few words 

 to the interesting Griffon Vulture, but I have since had many 

 more and much better opportunities of seeing this grand bird 

 in a state of freedom. I do not, however, even now pretend 

 to furnish an exhaustive treatise on this widely distributed 

 species, but simply feel impelled to communicate the results of 

 my observations in order to furnish materials for other 

 naturalists. 



The Griffon Vulture is the most generally and most widely 

 distributed of all the European members of its group. It is 

 found breeding in the southern provinces of our native 

 country, and during migration it visits all parts of the 

 kingdom, perhaps even more frequently than one imagines. 



In Slavonia, Transylvania, Dalmatia, Bosnia, and especially 

 in the Herzegovina it is considered one of the commonest 

 birds. Barren rocky mountains are among the chief requi- 

 sites for its frequent occurrence, but woods it does not 

 frequent, though it does not so scrupulously shun them as 

 most naturalists have hitherto maintained. The brothers 

 Sintenis found it breeding on trees, and I also know of an 

 instance where a pair of these birds nested on a pine-tree in 

 the midst of a large forest in Slavonia. These occurrences 

 are, however, quite exceptional, and the Cinereous Vulture 

 may be met with in the forests of Slavonia and the other 

 regions of the Lower Danube much more frequently than 

 the Griffon Vulture; the latter, indeed, is but rarely to be 

 seen. 



