THE GRIFFON VULTURE. 



259 



breeding home when there are no trees to be found in the neighbourhood. It lays one egg, of a 

 richly mottled red colour, two eggs being an extremely rare occurrence. In appearance they are very 

 Jike those of the Golden Eagle. A story is told of the rescue by a pair of old birds of their young 

 ones, which were in danger from the felling of the tree on which the nest was situated. It is thus 

 related by Count von Tshusi Schmidthofen : "The royal forester, A. Fikker, found in 1860, on the 

 top of a giant beech in the valley of Dobi-abach, in the Sinnaer district, the nest of this Vulture. 

 When the young birds were large enough to be able to save themselves as the tree fell, orders were 

 given to cut the beech down. The wood-cutters had worked at the tree some time, when the old 

 birds appeared, uttering loud cries, and suddenly pounced on the nest, caught hold of the young ones 



GRIFFON VULTURE. 



in their claws and disappeared like lightning, carrying off the young (who loudly complained of the 

 unusual mode of locomotion) before the gaze of the astonished spectators." 



The Black Vulture measures three feet and a half in length, and is entirely black, the bare 

 places on the head and neck being of a livid flesh colour when the bird is alive. 



THE GRIFFON VULTURE* 



. The Griffon, or Fulvous Vulture (so called from its colour), is found all over Southern Europe, 

 and occurs occasionally at different points in Central Europe, having once been taken in the British 

 islands off Cork Harbour ; it therefore figures in the list of British birds. It ranges all over North- 

 eastern Africa, and extends eastwards into Turkestan, Central Asia, and North-western India. As 

 it goes eastwards the Griffon becomes a more rufous bird, and is by some naturalists considered to be 

 a different species. In the British Museum is a very interesting specimen of this Vulture, collected 

 by Major Denham in Bornou during his travels across Africa, being one of the comparatively few birds 

 that have been brought from Central Africa, about the ornithology of which we do not even yet know 



* Gyps fuh-us. 



