478 ORNITHOLOGICAL SKETCHES 



In the Sierra de Bonda and the Sierra Nevada it is quite a 

 common bird. In the latter mountains I found it at a con- 

 siderable elevation and near the nest of a Bearded Vulture. 

 I also saw it everywhere in the plain of Granada. 



At the town of Tangiers, on the north coast of Africa, it is 

 of course very common. 



On the Guadalquivir, where the dunes and the well-wooded 

 banks of the river afford it fewer suitable resorts, I hardly 

 ever observed it; and in the plain between Zeres della Fron- 

 tera and Seville, and the immediate neighbourhood of these 

 towns, it was everywhere exceedingly rare. 



I have travelled so little in Portugal that I can say nothing 

 definite about it in that country, but I saw it in museums 

 and do not doubt that it is there abundant. 



In the range of the Picos de Europa, in Northern Spain, 

 I found it from the sea-coast up to the loftiest regions above 

 the limit of the woods, and it was equally plentiful in the 

 mountains of the interior near Avila, the Sierra Guadarrama, 

 and the Sierra de Gredos, as well as in the intervening plains. 

 In the latter I saw it close to the snow-line, and on the utterly 

 barren spurs of the former I found it in great numbers 

 near the Escorial, a fact which may be accounted for by the 

 peculiarly favourable lie of these mountains. 



The habits of this Vulture are, so far as I have been able 

 to observe them, unusually variable and entirely dependent 

 upon the locality occupied by each individual. Immediately 

 outside the gates of the towns it descends to the level of 

 a very low domestic creature, and lives upon carrion and 

 filth, while on the mountain-tops, near the perpetual snow, it 

 strikes the observer as being a noble bird of prey. One 

 characteristic it retains under all conditions of life, and that 

 is a gluttonous love of an enticing repast, which makes it 



