FROM SPAIN. 485 



quite tame young eagles, and appeared to look with disdain 

 on all that went on around him. 



The Bearded Vulture stands alone, no other raptorial bird 

 really resembles it. The Egyptian Vulture comes nearest to 

 it in its flight and the form of its tail, but differs from it 

 so greatly in all other respects that the two birds cannot be 

 said to have any true common characteristics such as exist 

 among individual species of the other groups of raptorial 

 birds. Its place appears to be between the eagles and the 

 vultures, and it is, in my opinion, equally unlike and equally 

 distant from both. Its flight is not at all like that of the 

 vultures, and is also quite different to that of the eagles. 

 In that respect, as well as in its habits and behaviour, it more 

 resembles the large falcons ; while its attitude, either when 

 sitting on rocky pinnacles or shooting swiftly along, low over 

 the ground, and the way in which it tumbles about when 

 playing high in the air, remind one only of the latter birds. The 

 observer who has never before met with a Bearded Vulture 

 will at once recognize it, for, in spite of its size, it can never 

 be mistaken for an eagle or a vulture. At a distance, indeed, 

 it always looks to me like a large Peregrine; but when it is 

 near and its full size is apparent, it presents quite a new 

 picture to the ornithologist, being totally unlike any other 

 bird ; for its goat-like head, with the black stripes above the 

 eyes, bristly beard that can be seen far away, long body 

 carried horizontally when flying, cuneate tail, long narrow 

 wings, and the mixture of hoary grey, black, and bright 

 yellow in its plumage, unite in giving it an extraordinary, 

 I might almost say a dragon-like, appearance. 



The sight of a Bearded Vulture involuntarily suggests the 

 thought that here must be a creature that does not belong to 

 the fauna of the present day, but is a gradually expiring 

 relic of an earlier epoch. And so it really is. Species indis- 



