510 ORNITHOLOGICAL SKETCHES 



the Jordan, the other between Nazareth and Jaffa. This bird 

 is unusually confiding in its behaviour towards man. 



19. NEOPHRON PERCNOPTERUS. Egyptian Vulture. 



More or less common throughout Egypt, and everywhere 

 distributed in Cairo and its neighbourhood. Near the towns 

 of Upper and Lower Egypt one sees it sitting "on the sand- 

 banks along the Nile watching for stranded carrion. Both 

 within and without the towns this Vulture is very audacious, 

 but can perfectly distinguish the Europeans, who murder 

 everything, from the Arabs, who protect it because it cleans 

 the neighbourhood from carrion and dirt. In Palestine it is 

 common, and even in the uninhabited districts of the Jordan 

 valley is the unfailing attendant of every encampment. There 

 it is much tamer than in Egypt, and we saw Carrion Vultures 

 going about among the tents looking for kitchen scraps. 



20. NEOPHRON PILEATUS. Pileated Vulture. 



The Pileated Vulture was observed in Upper Egypt. We 

 had laid out a carcass on a sandbank of the Nile for the pur- 

 pose of shooting large Vultures. At first several Egyptian 

 Vultures appeared, and soon afterwards three of these birds ; 

 but they were the only ones seen during the whole journey. 



21. VULTUR FULVUS. Griffon Vulture. 



The first Griffon Vultures which I saw in Africa were at 

 Cairo. There these great birds of prey may be observed 

 circling over the town almost daily. They came with great 

 regularity from the Mokattam hills to the city, and I once saw 

 them at a carcass in quite incredible numbers. Frightened 

 by the constant pursuit of the Europeans, they neither pass 

 the night nor nest in the precipices of those hills, but, accord- 

 ing to reliable observations, fly off every evening as far as the 

 Akaba mountains on the Eed Sea, near the town of Suez, and 



