ACCIPITRES. BIRDS. VULTURID^E. 



237 



title of predaceous birds, as they rarely attack a living 

 prey, but content themselves with feeding upon the 

 flesh of such animals as have already died. Their 



F\S. 96. 



Head of the Tawny Vulture (Gyps fulvus.) 



favourite food, in fact, is carrion, in the midst of which 

 they revel in a state of the highest enjoyment, often 

 gorging themselves to such a degree with this savoury 

 banquet, that they become utterly incapable of flight. 

 From the nature of their diet they also acquire an 

 abominable odour; and taking these facts into considera- 

 tion, it is hardly to be wondered at that most people 

 feel a certain degree of disgust associated with the idea 

 of a vulture. But in the hot countries frequented by 

 these birds, they are viewed with very different eyes ; 

 there their mission as scavengers is recognized. They 

 are seen pouring down in flocks upon an abundant sup- 

 ply of their favourite food, and soon clear away every 

 vestige of animal matter, even from a large carcase ; 

 thus preventing those pestilential effluvia which would 

 speedily emanate from a mass of animal matter exposed 

 to the tropical sun, and poison the air in its vicinity. 

 Viewed in this light, the vultures must be regarded 

 as benefactors of the human race in the countries 

 frequented by them, and in most oriental cities they 

 combine, in their own proper persons, the offices of 

 inspectors and removers of nuisances. Under any cir- 

 cumstances, the vultures are certainly undeserving of 

 the opprobrium that has been heaped upon them even 

 by professed naturalists, such as Buffon and his fol- 

 lowers, whose statements have still some influence upon 

 the popular mind. It is true, that if we apply to the 

 characters of animals the moral tests that we employ in 

 discriminating those of our fellows, the vultures may be 

 called cowardly, lazy, and gluttonous, and the eagles 

 may be magnified into models of courage and noble- 

 ness. But this is hardly fair, for each of these birds is 

 equally fitted for its peculiar sphere of activity. The 

 vulture feeding on carrion, and even preferring this to 

 freshly-killed meat, is not likely to exhibit much of 

 what is called courage in attacking other animals, and 

 in devouring as much as he can at once, he is but ful- 

 filling his instincts ; and on the other hand, when we 

 calmly investigate the so-called courage of the eagle, 

 we find it hardly so great as is commonly supposed, for 

 scarcely any of the animals that he attacks have the 

 least power to defend themselves against his terrific 

 talons. 



It has long been a question amongst ornithologists 

 whether the vultures discover their food by the sense 

 of smell or by that of sight ; and the older writers on 

 natural history generally assumed that it was by the 

 former of these senses that the birds received the first 

 indication of the presence of their favourite nourish- 

 ment. Probably they were led to this conclusion rather 

 by the well known odorous properties of the delicacies 

 in question than by any other consideration ; and it 

 must be confessed that this solution of the matter 

 seemed perfectly natural. It is now, however, a good 

 many years since some ornithologists ventured to raise 

 a doubt as to the accuracy of this view, denying that 

 the vultures were endowed with the sense of smell in 

 a sufficiently high degree to account for their percep- 

 tion of carrion at a distance, and urging the claims of 

 the sense of sight to the honour of guiding these birds 

 to then- food. The controversy was carried on with a 

 vehemence which soon left the ordinary amenities, sup- 

 posed to prevail amongst philosophers, at a distance ; 

 and it seems now to be established, in opposition to the 

 older writers, that it is really by the sense of sight, at 

 all events in part, that the vultures discover their food. 

 Thus it has been found, that when the body of an 

 animal, even in an advanced stage of putridity, is con- 

 cealed by a covering of any kind, the vultures do not 

 come near it ; but as soon as the covering is removed, 

 they descend upon the carcass and speedily devour it. 

 It is also said that a carcass may lie untouched in a 

 similar manner under the trees of the forest, although 

 the vultures may frequently sail over the spot ; whilst 

 the same object could scarcely He for a few minutes in 

 the open country without being surrounded by numerous 

 devourers. These facts seem to show indubitably, that 

 it is to acuteness of vision that the vultures are usually 

 indebted for earliest intelligence of a feast in prospect. 



Amongst the vultures, as in the monkeys, we find 

 that the members of the family inhabiting the two 

 hemispheres are distinguished by certain peculiarities 

 coinciding with their geographical distribution. One of 

 the most important of these consists in the structure of 

 the nostrils, which, in the species inhabiting the Old 

 World, are separated by a partition, so that they appear 

 as mere holes pierced in the cere on the sides of the 

 beak ; whilst in the American species the partition is 

 wanting, and the nostrils form an opening from one 

 side of the beak to the other. 



THE AKABIAN VULTUEE (Vultur monachus) 

 Plate 1, fig. 1 is not, as might be supposed from its 

 name, peculiar to the peninsula of Arabia; its range 

 extends over the whole of Northern Africa, and it also 

 occurs in Persia, India, and several parts of the south 

 of Europe, especially in mountainous districts, such as 

 the Pyrenees, Switzerland, the Tyrol, Hungary, Italy, 

 and Spain. In the Pyrenees it is known by the name 

 of the Arrian. We have mentioned it first from its being 

 the type of the genus Vultur, as restricted by modern 

 authors, distinguished by having the nostrils round, and 

 the head or neck more or less covered with a short 

 down. The Arabian Vulture is a large species, mea- 

 suring about four feet in height. The general colour 

 of its plumage is a blackish-brown, but sometimes with 

 an intermixture of tawny ; the head is covered with a 



