GRIFFON VULTURE. 3 
extraordinary extent of vision. Their flight is rather 
marked by a sustaining strength than great rapidity ; the 
latter quality being more particularly required by those 
birds which pursue and prey on living animals. The 
more straightened claws of the Vultures, unlike those of 
the Falcons, do not enable them generally to grasp and 
bear away the carrion to their young; but, more or less 
restrained in these powers according to the species, most 
of them devour their meal on the spot where they find it, 
and conveying it away in their craw, disgorge it when 
they arrive at their nest. 
It will be one of the objects of this History to trace our 
British Birds, throughout all the various countries in which 
they are found, and thus to show, as far as has been yet 
observed, the extent of the range of each species. 
Iam indebted to the kindness of Admiral Bowles for 
the first notice of the capture in Ireland of the Griffon 
Vulture, of which the engraved figure at the commence- 
ment of this article is a representation. In the autumn of 
1843, while Admiral Bowles was in command on the 
Cork station, on his visiting Lord Shannon, at Castle 
Martyr, near the Cove of Cork, he saw there this Vulture 
which had been caught by a youth on the rocks near 
Cork Harbour, in the spring of that year. The bird had 
been brought to Castle Martyr for sale, and was purchased 
by Lord Shannon’s keeper for half-a-crown. The bird 
was full grown; the plumage perfect, without any of the 
appearances consequent upon confinement ; there was no 
reason to suspect that the bird had escaped from any ship ; 
it was very wild and savage, and was in perfect health. 
Not long afterwards Mr. Thompson observes in the An- 
nals of Natural History already quoted, ‘his Lordship 
politely offered the bird to Mr. Ball for the collection in 
B 2 
