-68 Bihliographical Notice. 



is not always easy to understaud which of the partners is speaking 

 in the first pei'son singular ; while the notes on bird-life in the 

 marisma as well as in the mountains will be recognized as princi- 

 pally due to Mr. Chapman. Most ornithologists are aware that he 

 was the first of our countrymen who obtained absolute proof of the 

 manner in which the Flamingo nests, having waded under a burning 

 sun for long distances through mud and water in order to sketch these 

 wary birds actually sitting on their nests. That the old statement 

 respecting the bird's position astride was an easily explained fable 

 had for some time been the opinion of those persons Avho had given 

 the matter a thought ; but it was Mr. Chapman who proved the 

 correctness of these surmises, and the accuracy of his descriptions 

 have been corroborated by the subsequent observations made by Sir 

 H. H. Blake, when Governor of the Bahamas. Among the happiest 

 of the many illustrations arc those relating to the flamingoes, stilts, 

 avocets, herons, ducks, &g., which inhabit the great marshes forming 

 the delta of the Guadalquivir, and known as the marisma; while 

 the sketches of birds of prey, both in the plain and on the mountain, 

 leave nothing to be desired. The attitudes of the vultures, whether 

 at their nesting-places, banquets, or on the wing, are admirable ; 

 and even should exception be taken to a little hardness in plate 

 XXV., its deficiencies from the artistic point of view may well be 

 pardoned in consideration of the spirit and fidelity with which the 

 evolutions of the assembling vultures are rendered. There is also 

 an illustration of a soaring Gypaetus harhatus carrying a snake in 

 its talons ; the bird passed slowly along the line of the sportsmen 

 in the Sierra Bermeja and appeared to have about " four feet of 

 writhing reptile " dangling beneath it. Some interesting particulars 

 are given respecting this handsome species, persistently styled 

 " Lammergeyer " [sic] by the authors, who prefer, for some inscru- 

 table reason, a mis-spelt German word to a descriptive English term. 

 As a rule the German name is, even when correctly spelled, some- 

 what misleading, for the Bearded Vulture, as we prefer to call the bird, 

 feeds chiefly on bones (which it smashes by dropping them from a 

 height), carrion, and — especially in India — the foulest garbage ; 

 but there appears to be strong evidence that durin;/ the hr'eeding- 

 season the bird is destructive ^o very young kids and lambs : while 

 Manuel de la Torre, of Madrid, whose accuracy is unimpeachable, 

 has actually seen one of these birds kill a rabbit. The above 

 animals, small though they are, would probably be torn to pieces 

 and swallowed on the spot, for Ave do not think that this 

 species could carry off in its clutches anything exceeding a few 

 pounds in weight. Moreover, Gypaetus harhatus certainly has a 

 way of coming sharply round the edge of a clifi^, and that it might 

 frighten or even knock a kid off a narrow ledge we have no doubt 

 whatever ; indeed its sudden apparition, when a man is holding on 

 with both hands, is sufiiciently startling, and under such circum- 

 stances the bird will sometimes sweep past far more closely than at 

 other times ; but we never knew it to attack anybody, or to defend 

 its nest even when it had young. 



