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CHAPTER VII. 



VULTURES LOATHSOME FEEDERS STRENGTH OF. SNAKE- 

 EATER. MODE OF KILLING SERPENTS. HAWKS CHARAC- 

 TER OF. HAWKING FOR BUSTARDS. VALUE OF. ICELAND 



FALCONS MUCH PRIZED. FALCONRY IN FORMER DAYS. 



CONTEST WITH HERONS. MODES OF CATCHING. THE SPAR- 

 ROW-HAWK. ANECDOTES. THE GLEAD, OR KITE. HERONS. 



FOOD OF THE HAWK TRIBE. THEIR DISPOSITION. THE 



HAWK SACRED TO THE EGYPTIANS AND TURKS. 



VULTURES 



ARE nearly allied to the Eagles in point of size and 

 some of their habits; they yet differ from them con- 

 siderably in others: generally speaking, they may 

 be easily distinguished by the head and part of the 

 neck being either quite naked or covered with a 

 short down. Instead of ranging over hill and valley 

 in pursuit of living game, they confine their search, 

 to dead and putrefying carcasses, which they prefer: 

 and justly merit, by the voracity with which they 

 devour the most offensive carrion, the name of 

 Scavengers, in some countries, where they are never 

 destroyed, in consequence of the good they do, by 

 consuming the bodies of animals that might, but for 

 the assistance of the Vultures, breed a pestilence 

 in the hot climates where they most abound. A 

 traveller in Africa, having killed two buffaloes, and 

 directed his party to cut them up piecemeal, and 

 hang the various joints on the branches round their 

 tents, that they might be dried up under the 

 scorching beams of a burning sun, found himself 



