242 PATIENCE REWARDED. 



the feast and are circling high up among the clouds ; 

 but you cannot look up, and therefore cannot see 

 them from your cave. Another good hour passes. 

 At length your patience is rewarded. A rustling of 

 heavy wings is heard, and the snow-vulture perches 

 on a rock beside the carrion. You are trembling 

 with excitement, fearful of making the slightest 

 noise by which you would frighten the wary bird 

 away. In a little while he flies down to the 

 ground, and, after sitting still for a few minutes, 

 walks towards the prey, swaying his great body 

 from side to side and hopping occasionally. In a 

 moment the whole crew of feasters retires to make 

 room for the giant, one solitary crow perhaps re- 

 maining on the opposite side of the carcase, but his 

 behaviour is now more deferential. Greedily the 

 hungry vulture begins swallowing the entrails or the 

 meat ; in another minute, however, a shot is heard 

 and he falls lifeless on the spot. 



But if you defer your fire other vultures are sure 

 to appear, and after the first one has cautiously des- 

 cended the others alight directly on the meat, and 

 sometimes a dozen or more will collect round a large 

 carcase, and you may if you are fortunate secure 

 two with one bullet. 



The heavy snowfall in the alpine zone obliged 

 us to remove our camp in the second week of May, 

 and descend to the middle forest belt. From this 

 my companion and a Cossack started for the temple 

 of Chertinton, to fetch the boxes containing our col- 

 lections which we had left behind Avith some other 



