387 



Mr. A. Anderson also records it as a cold-weather visitant, arriving in November, and leaving 

 again in March for its breeding-haunts. Major Irby met with it in Kumaon. It has been noticed 

 in Pekin and Mongolia by Pere David, but was not met with by any of the Siberian travellers. 



Mr. Swinhoe, writing from Ningpo, states that he procured this Vulture off one of the 

 islands in the Chusan archipelago. The bird was a male ; and a female, probably his mate, was 

 shot off an island not far from the mouth of the Shanghai River. " The Chinese are not acquainted 

 with this bird ; they call it the Hai Laoying, or Sea Kite. "We can find no word in Chinese to 

 express ' Vulture,' a difficulty felt by the translators of the Bible." 



In its habits the Cinereous Vulture resembles the Griffon ; and both species often meet to 

 banquet off some loathsome carcass. In Bulgaria they are very numerous ; and Dresser has 

 often seen large numbers of both species collected together where food was to be found. They 

 are heavy and slow in their actions, although they can display considerable activity when busy 

 tearing at a carcass and squabbling for their share of the repast. Mr. Farman found them some- 

 what shy, principally frequenting the wooded districts, and seldom venturing into the open 

 country. They also appear to be of an unsociable disposition, seldom mixing with the other 

 Vultures, except at their common feasts of carrion, when, indeed, they are all frequently to be 

 seen amicably feeding together off the same carcass. 



Until very lately it was supposed that this Vulture, like the Griffon, deposited a white egg 

 on the cliffs ; but later investigations have proved this to be erroneous, except perhaps in 

 isolated cases, where, there being no trees within reach, the bird is compelled to deposit its egg 

 on the rocks ; for, according to the experience of Lord Lilford and Mr. Howard Saunders in 

 Spain, and Mr. Farman and Messrs. Elwes and Buckley in Turkey, it invariably builds a large 

 bulky nest, placed sometimes high and at others low in a tree, and deposits rarely more than 

 one egg, which is as richly blotched with colour as the ordinary run of the eggs of the Golden 

 Eagle, and sometimes as strongly marked as the eggs of the Egyptian Vulture. Two instances 

 of this species having been found breeding, like the Griffon, on cliffs are on record — one by 

 Canon Tristram (Ibis, 1865, p. 245), and the other by Messrs. Elwes and Buckley (Ibis, 1870, 

 p. 63) ; but in both instances the eggs were white, which alone would lead us to receive the 

 information with hesitation ; for, out of considerably more than a hundred eggs of this species 

 which we have examined, we have never yet met with a pure white specimen; and it would 

 appear odd if this bird should, when depositing its egg, contrary to its usual custom, on a cliff, 

 also produce an egg unlike those which are laid when it nests on a tree, but closely resembling 

 the egg of the Griffon. 



This species appears to breed somewhat earlier than the Griffon, as Mr. Farman found 

 young birds at the same time that eggs he procured of the latter were quite fresh. Messrs. 

 Elwes and Buckley describe the nest as being very bulky, composed of large boughs, and lined 

 with small twigs and wool. Mr. Farman found it invariably on a tree, about twenty feet from 

 the ground, and never saw more than one young bird or one egg in each nest. He considers 

 that they return to the same nest year after year. We have received the following note on 

 its breeding-habits from Mr. T. E. Buckley: — "The first nest we took was in Macedonia, on 

 February 27th, out of a range of cliffs ; it contained one round white egg, and that hard-set. 

 This is the only occurrence of the Black Vulture building in a cliff that came under our immediate 



