476 ORNITHOLOGICAL SKETCHES 



IV. 



THE EGYPTIAN VULTURE 



(Neophron percnopterus). 



IN order that the entire group of the European Vultures 

 may be included in my remarks, I have still to append my 

 notes on Neophron percnopterus, the Egyptian Vulture. 



Never having had an opportunity of observing this vulture 

 in a state of freedom in Eastern Europe, I was all the more 

 eager to study it in Spain. There it is the commonest and 

 most generally distributed bird of prey, and, excepting in the 

 highly cultivated district of Barcelona, is everywhere to be 

 found, though never in great numbers. Still detached pairs 

 inhabit all parts of the country, in just the proportion that 

 each district admits of. 



The Egyptian Vulture is the bird of Islam, for its way of 

 living adapts itself to that of the Mohammedans. Where the 

 Crescent still holds sway, there it also is at home ; and where, 

 as in Spain, the Orientals once dwelt, and only their vices 

 and none of their many virtues now remain as a remembrance 

 of better days, there also the Egyptian Vulture is in its true 

 element. There is no bird whose habits are, on close inspec- 

 tion, found to be more repulsive than those of the Neophron. 

 In its whole being, too, there is but little that reminds one of 

 the raptorial birds, and even its appearance is in keeping with 

 its way of living, while its flight is a curious blending of that 



