BEARDED VULTURE. 17 
The fact of these birds seizing upon children has often been doubted, 
but there are many well-authenticated stories of such catastrophes. In 
Appenzall one carried off a child before the eyes of its parents and 
neighbours. On the Silber Alpan, Schweitz, a Vulture attacked a 
shepherd boy, began tearing him in pieces, and finally precipitated him 
into an abyss before assistance arrived. In the Bernere Oberland a 
child of three years old, called Anna Zurbuchen, was carried off, but 
rescued on the rocks without having been much injured. She afterwards 
went by the name of the Geier-Anni, and was living at an advanced 
age a few years ago. 
These birds lift up great weights ; in the Grisons one took off a lamb 
weighing fifteen pounds. Another carried away a butcher's dog; and 
another instance is recorded of a goat being borne away. A Lammer- 
geyer seldom attacks grown people, never unless its nest is disturbed 
or the man is in a dangerous position. Two will often attack a man 
whom they see hanging helpless upon a rock; and on the other hand 
one will venture single-handed to assail two huntsmen who are asleep. 
The nest of the Lammergeyer is not easy to take, and the task is 
dangerous, as they always build in steep rocks. The renowned chamois 
hunter Joseph Scherrer, of Ammon, climbed barefoot once, gun in hand, 
to a nest which he suspected to contain some young. Before he reached 
it the male bird flew out; Scherrer shot him through, and re-loading 
his gun proceeded. But when he got near the nest the female flew 
out upon him, making a terrible noise, and fixing her talons in his hips, 
and beating him with her wings, endeavoured to drive him over the 
precipice. His wonderful presence of mind saved him; with the dis- 
engaged hand he pointed the gun to the bird's breast, and pressing the 
trigger with his naked foot discharged it; the Vulture fell dead. 
The Lammergeyer builds in places equally inaccessible to naturalists 
and bullets. Its nest is ingenious; the sub-stratum is formed of a mass 
of straw, fern, and stalks, lying upon a number of sticks and branches, 
laid crossways one upon another ; the nest, which rests upon the under 
layer, is composed of branches woven into the shape of a wreath, and 
lined with down and moss, and the contents of this part alone would 
fill the largest hay cloth. Very early in the year the female lays three 
or four large white eggs, spotted with brown, (rusty? — C.E.B.) of 
which only two generally are hatched. The young birds are covered 
with a whitish down, and their huge ill-proportioned crops and maws 
give them an ugly and shapeless appearance." 
We have been favoured by Mr. J. H. Gurney with the following 
notes of this bird: — "Specimens from Algeria and the Caucasus are 
identical with the European. Those from Abyssinia differ from the 
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