THE HOME OF THE LAAIMERGEYER. 



31£ 



of eating a rabbit I had just seen it kill. This was in the 

 Pardo. A dead hare or rabbit is the best bait to attract 

 the Gypaetus to the gun ; it regularly hunts both. The 

 Neophron I have never seen take any living thing ; it only 

 eats carrion, garbage, and offal, but I have found dead 

 snakes in its nests. The Gypaetus, like the vultures 

 and some eagles, feed their young for some months on 

 half-digested food, disgorged from their own crops." This 

 is the evidence of one who has seen more of the Lam- 

 mergeyer than any other living naturalist, and it is for 

 this reason that, contrary to our practice, we have accepted 

 what may be called hearsay evidence. 



It is for these reasons that we have retained the dis- 

 tinctive title of Lammergeyer, now generally discarded 

 in favour — on mistaken grounds, we think — of the 

 name of "Bearded Vulture." Independently of the 

 fact that our subject is no more a vulture than it is an 

 eagle, surely a distinctive name is preferable to further 

 iteration of the wearisome monotony — ay, poverty — of 

 ornithological nomenclature. Have we not run to death 

 those compound epithets, " long-legged," "black-tailed," 

 " white-shouldered," and the like '? Even on the assump- 

 tion — not proven in this case — that the word conveys an 

 inference not strictly accurate, there are precedents for its 

 retention, e.g., Caprimulgus, Goatsucker, Nycticorax, Ber- 

 nicla, the Bernacle Goose, Oyster-catcher, and many 

 more. We hesitate to accept such substitutes as Tures 

 and Bearded Vulture for the time-honoured designations 

 of Ibex and Lammergever. 



