126 SPORT AND TRAVEL 



blotched with rich red brown. It proved to be a 

 good deal incubated, and must have been laid 

 towards the end of February. The black vulture is 

 fairly numerous in Asia Minor, and is also found in 

 Central and Southern Europe, being particularly plen- 

 tiful in the great forests of Hungary. Their nests are 

 always built in trees. They are solitary in their breed- 

 ing habits, according to my observation, for, although 

 there may be several pairs nesting on one mountain, 

 the nests will be far apart. 



During the next few days we spent our time, from 

 daylight to dark, on the mountain looking for goats, 

 and searching at the same time for the nests of vul- 

 tures and eagles. We saw a few nanny-goats and kids 

 almost every day, but not a single ram, and so never 

 fired a shot. But if the hunting was a failure, the study 

 of the bird-life on the mountain was most interesting, 



O' 



though none but the larger birds of prey had nested. 

 On March 9, I took my first griffon vulture's 

 nest ( Vultur fulvus\ which I found placed on a ledge 

 of rock in the face of a cliff high up the mountain. 

 This nest was very easily accessible, and contained one 

 egg slightly incubated. This egg was rather smaller 

 than that of the black vulture, and pure white. I sub- 

 sequently found many more griffon vultures' nests, 

 which were always built of fir boughs, and rather 

 neatly lined with the green ends. They were all, too, 

 placed on the ledges of cliffs, and were many of them 

 inaccessible without a rope, though I managed to take 



