26 THE VULTURE. 



THE VULTURE, 



As well as the condor, is allowed to hold only the second 

 rank in the class of rapacious birds, and is placed after the eagle, 

 not from any inferiority in size and strength, but from being less 

 generous and bold. The vulture may be easily distinguished 

 from all birds of the eagle kind, by the nakedness of its head and 

 neck, which are covered only with a very slight down and a few 

 scattered hairs. Its eyes are more prominent than those of the 

 eagle : its claws are short, and less hooked ; its attitude less up- 

 right, and its flight more heavy. 



If, however, the vulture be thus distinguished from the eagle 

 by its conformation, it differs still more from that noble bird in 

 its habits and disposition. The eagle, unless violently pressed 

 by hunger, never stoops to carrion, nor devours any thing but 

 what is obtained by its own pursuits ; the vulture, on the con- 

 trary, is indelicately and indiscriminately voracious. It seldom 

 attacks living animals, when it can obtain a supply from those 

 that are dead ; and seems to delight in carrion and putridity. 

 It is frequently known to root up newly-made graves, and devour 

 the dead carcasses they contain. The sense of smelling is in 

 these birds exceedingly acute ; and they can scent carrion at a 

 very great distance. 



Of the vulture, as well as of the eagle, there are many va- 

 rieties. The golden vulture measures four feet and a half in 

 length. The neck, belly, and breast, are red: but towards the 

 tail, the colour becomes more faint; the back is black, and the 

 wings are of a yellowish brown. This species, together with 

 the brown and ash-coloured, are natives of Europe. The spot- 

 ted and the black are the most common in Egypt; but the 

 bearded, the Brazilian, and the king of the vultures, are peculiar 

 to America. Many other varieties might be added, which it 

 would be unnecessary to describe, and even tedious to enume- 

 rate. Nature is infinitely diversified in all her works ; and in no 

 part of the creation is that diversity more visible and striking, 

 than in taking a view of the volatile race. 



Of all living creatures, no two are more at enmity than the 

 vulture of Brazil and the crocodile. This terrible amphibious 

 animal, which in the rivers of South America grows to the mon- 

 strous size of twenty-seven feet in length, lays its eggs to the 

 number of a hundred, or two hundred, in the sands on the side 

 of a river, where they are hatched by the heat of the climate, 

 and at the same time takes every precaution to hide from all 

 other animals the place where she deposits her burden. In the 

 meanwhile, numbers of vultures sit silent and unseen in some 

 neighbouring forest, and view the operations of the crocodile, in 



