6S 



cassell's book of birds. 



widely extended that a wagon could have been sheltered under it. In this nest were three young 

 birds, already so large as to measure three ells in the spread of their wings. Their legs were thicker 

 than those of a lion, and their claws as the fingers of a man." We smile at such exaggerations as 

 these ; there is no doubt, however, that these birds are by far the most dangerous and rapacious of 

 the many feathered tyrants by which mountain ranges are infested. In 1819 so numerous did 

 they become in Saxe Gotha that, after two children had been carried off by them, a price was set 



THE BEARDED VULTURE, OR LAMMERGEIER (GypaetoS barliallis). 



upon their heads. They destroy sheep, hares, she-goats, chamois, and calves, in large numbers, and 

 hold even man himself in so little dread that he would be foolhardy indeed who should venture to 

 molest them during the breeding season. From Simpson we learn that marrow-bones constitute the 

 tid-bits of these feathered monsters, and that no sooner is the flesh stripped away than they either 

 swallow the bones entire or dash them to pieces by dropping them upon a piece of rock. They will 

 also devour tortoises, and the writer from whom we quote suggests that it was probably a Lammergeier 

 that made the unfortunate mistake of endeavouring to break the hard covering of one of these 



