160 CLASS AVES. 



admitted indiscriminately to the disgusting banquet. If pressed 

 by hunger, they will descend near the habitations of men, but 

 they never attempt an attack except on the peaceable and 

 timid tenants of the poultry yard. 



The vultures are more numerous in the southern than in the 

 northern parts of the globe. Still, it does not appear that they 

 dread the cold, and seek warmth in preference ; for in our part 

 of the world they live in the greatest numbers on the highest 

 mountains, and descend but rarely into the plains. In the hot 

 climates, such as Egypt, where they are very numerous and of 

 great utility, because they clear the surface of the earth of the 

 debris of dead animals, and prevent the ill consequences of 

 putrefaction, they are more frequently seen upon the plain 

 than in the mountains. They approach inhabited places, and 

 spread themselves at daybreak in the towns and villages, and 

 render essential service to the inhabitants by gorging them- 

 selves with the filth and carrion accumulated in the streets. 

 In our climates the vultures, during the fine season, inhabit 

 the most lofty and deserted mountains ; there, says Belon, 

 they build their nests against shelvy rocks and in inaccessible 

 situations. Authors are not agreed as to the number of their 

 eggs, some stating it at two, others more. They do not carry 

 food for their young in their talons, like the eagles, which even 

 tear their prey in the air to distribute it to their family ; but 

 they fill their crop, and then disgorge the contents into the 

 beaks of the little ones. In winter they migrate into a warmer 

 climate. 



The Fulvous Vulture of the text, which was first properly 

 described by the anatomists of the French Academy of the 

 Sciences, was judged by these gentlemen to be the large species 

 of vulture indicated by Aristotle, the colour of which approaches 

 more to that of the cinereous species, according to the Greek 

 naturalist. Buffon has rendered this somewhat vague conjec- 

 ture of the Academy more probable ; but the want of proper 

 information on some species which it was difficult to procure. 



