394 



Acccording to Professor Nordmann it is sedentary in the southern parts of Kussia, but 

 nowhere numerous. It inhabits the mountainous districts, descending into the plains during 

 very severe seasons. In Asia Minor, according to Dr. Kriiper (J. f. O. 1869, p. 22), " it is not 

 uncommon near Smyrna, especially in localities which are not far distant from its breeding- 

 haunts. When travelling by rail last May I noticed, a little beyond Kaias, a large flock of these 

 Vultures in company with individuals of Vultur fulvus feeding on the carcass of an ox. It 

 arrives in the vicinity of Smyrna in March ; this year I observed the first on the 12th of that 

 month, and last year on the 25th. On the 5th June last year I found a nest near Burnova 

 containing young birds only a few days old ; but this year the nest was not tenanted." 



In Palestine, Canon Tristram writes (Ibis, 1885, p. 249), "It never breeds in colonies, and 

 seldom are two nests to be found very near together ; but it is the most universally diffused of 

 all the Eaptores of Palestine during summer, it being impossible in any part of the country to 

 travel a mile or two without putting up a pair. It has no dislike to the neighbourhood of man, 

 and fearlessly resorts to the dunghills of the villages to feed. No filth, vegetable or animal, 

 seems to come amiss to it ; and I once surprised a pair in the act of gorging at a heap of spoilt 

 figs. The Neophron is strictly migratory, and begins to return about the end of March ; and by 

 the middle of April the country is full of them. The first egg we obtained was laid near the 

 plain of Gennesaret on April 1st ; and our last pair of fresh eggs were found on May 24th, in the 

 mountainous region near Hermon. The nests, though always in the cliffs, were generally low 

 down, and comparatively easy of access, in this respect differing very decidedly from the Griffon's. 

 I took an egg from one nest in an arched passage through the rocks, close to the village of 

 Mejdel, and so little concealed that every passer-by could see it ; and a child might have climbed 

 up to it. On the whole, it appears to be more prolific in Palestine than in North Africa ; for 

 while in the Atlas a single egg was the frequent complement, out of upwards of fifty nests which 

 we took in this expedition I do not remember one in which the bird was actually sitting on a 

 solitary egg. Yet in no instance did we find more than a pair of eggs." According to Captain 

 Clark Kennedy (Ibis, 1874, p. 110), this Vulture is " one of the commonest of birds in the 

 Sinaitic desert, and almost as numerous in some places here as in Egypt itself. Around the 

 convent of Sinai there were a great many of them ; and we met it far north in Palestine ; but it 

 seemed to become scarcer as we worked northwards from Jerusalem. Wherever we pitched our 

 tents in the desert, whether on a sandy plain or almost hidden among those towering mountains, 

 an assemblage of Egyptian Vultures were certain to be the first living things we saw- in the early 

 morning, and the last birds to take leave of us at night." 



In North-east Africa this Vulture is extremely abundant, breeding among the lofty crags 

 along the banks of the Nile. Mr. Blanford found it numerous everywhere in Abyssinia, from 

 the sea-level up to 10,000 feet, and equally so near the camps on the Wadela plateau and on 

 the shores of Annesley Bay. According to Finsch and Hartlaub it is but rare in that portion of 

 Africa which their work embraces. Kirk saw it once on Lake Nyassa, and Von der Decken at 

 Zanzibar. Heuglin also speaks of it as being less numerous than Neophron pileatus on the 

 Danakil and Somali coasts ; and Brehm assures us that in the highlands of Abyssinia it is as one 

 to fifty compared with Neophron pileatus. Loche remarks that in Algeria, though very common, 

 it never occurs in large flocks, but is always seen singly or in pairs ; and Mr. Salvin says (Ibis, 



