168 ACCIPITRES. 



front have something the aspect of a pair of large spectacles, 

 while the single one looks a little like the cup of a con- 

 volvulus with a dark eye at the bottom. 



Owls are supposed to be of use about dams and mill-ponds, 

 by capturing the rats and shrews which bore into the banks. 

 They are of use in churches, and other places which are only 

 occasionally frequented ; for though " church mice " are pro- 

 verbially lean, they are on that account the more apt to 

 attack and destroy whatever may either by accident or 

 design be left in their way. 





VULTUKES. 



Vultures being birds which prey almost exclusively upon 

 animals in a state of putrefaction, or upon those which have 

 the weakness of disease and the "scent of death" upon them, 

 are not birds adapted either to the course of nature, or to the 

 state of the arts in Britain. They are found in wild places, 

 where undomesticated animals perish by the casualties of the 

 weather; on the margins of great rivers, where animals are 

 drowned, and left by the subsiding floods; and generally in 

 tropical, or at least warm countries, where the taint of their 

 food can be borne far by the air. But as there is one which 

 comes occasionally, though rarely, as a straggler, a mere 

 notice of that one may be given. 



THE ALPINE VULTURE (Vultur percnopterus). 



This vulture measures about two feet and a half in length, 

 and, in the largest specimens, between seven and eight in the 

 stretch of the wings. The full-grown male is nearly white ; 

 the female brownish, with the wing feathers very dark 

 brown, margined with grey. The beak is long and narrow, 

 the face naked, and the whole bird of an uncouth and ragged 

 appearance. 



They come farthest when the weather is very hot and dry, 



