486 ORNITHOLOGICAL SKETCHES 



putably change in the course of time, and new forms replace 

 those that are dying out. The Ibex and the Bearded Vulture 

 two representatives of the ancient Alpine fauna of Europe 

 are perishing together. Both are children of the highest 

 mountains, dependent on conditions of utter freedom and 

 repose, and both have retreated before the all-destroying race 

 of man into a few isolated mountain-ranges, where even the 

 last survivors are approaching the period of their final ex- 

 tinction. 



The Lammergeier of the Austrian and Swiss Alps has for 

 some years past become a matter of story ; it once dwelt 

 there: and the same will ere long be the case in Spain. In 

 the Balkan peninsula it is always one of the greatest rarities, 

 and soon only the mountains of the Atlas and a few of the 

 Asiatic ranges will harbour the bird, which in former years 

 was the emblem of our own Alpine world. In the Austrian 

 dominions the last of the Bearded Vultures now live in Tran- 

 sylvania and the mountains at the Iron Gates; but rare as 

 they are even there, it would still be possible to find a 

 nest by careful observation, and I have already received 

 skins from those districts. 



