DANGEROUS ANIMALS OF EUROPE 193 



loaded, but he dared not let go his hold on the 

 rock to fire it. His attitude was for a time that 

 of a reversed Prometheus, the vulture tearing his 

 back, instead of making a meal of its victim's liver. 

 In this predicament the hunter contrived to shift 

 the position of his gun, so that the muzzle almost 

 touched the breast of the lammergeier, and cocked 

 and fired it with his foot. But in these cases the 

 vulture was not the first aggressor. Unfortunately, 

 the cases in which it has carried away young infants 

 are not rare, and are well authenticated. A number 

 of these are mentioned by Tschudi, the naturalist 

 of the Alps. In the canton of Uri a woman was 

 living in 1854 who had been carried off by a 

 lammergeier when a baby ; at Hundwyl, in the canton 

 of Appenzell, a child was carried off in sight of its 

 parents. On the Silberalp a vulture attacked a little 

 boy who was watching sheep seated on a rock, and 

 had time to knock him over the edge of the cliff 

 before the shepherds could drive the bird away. At 

 Murren, above the valley of Lauterbrunnen, a vulture 

 carried an infant to an inaccessible rock opposite 

 the village and devoured it. Portions of the baby's 

 red frock lay there for some time. Another child 

 of two years' old, but very small and feeble, was 

 lost when out with her sister. The remains of the 

 body were afterwards found on a rock, separated 



