QYPAETUS BARBATUS. 



157 



to the great increase of guns carried lately, their disappearance 

 in the districts near Gibraltar is easily accounted for." 



Other causes of their decrease are attributed to poison laid for 

 wolves and, more than all, ornithological collectors. The 

 Griffons have not diminished about the Vega de la Janda, so 

 poison can have done little damage, though in the provinces of 

 Malaga and Granada many Vultures have been poisoned. 



NEST OF BEABDED VULTURE. 



The name of " Quebrantahuesos " is applied from their well- 

 known habit of taking bones up to a great height and dropping 

 them on the rocks, so as to break the bones small enough to 

 be able to swallow the fragments. These bone-breaking places, 

 which they regularly use on tops of the sierras, are well known to 

 the cabreros, and one which I examined did not appear to differ 

 from any other flat rock. The wedge shaped tail of the Bearded 

 Vulture is very apparent when flying overhead ; their flight and 



