322 PALCONID^ 



CIECAETUS 



The following are the principal localities recorded : Cape Colony — 

 Bain's Kloof in the Paarl division, Nelspoort in Beaufort West, 

 Swellendam, George and Graaff Eeinet (Layard), Willowmore 

 (Bryden), Caledon (S. A. Mus.) ; Natal — Inanda, near Durban 

 (Ayres), Bushman Pass, near Escourt (Stark) ; Transvaal — 

 Lydenburg (Ayres). 



Habits. — The Lammervanger is almost entirely confined to 

 mountain ranges and appears to be nowhere very common in 

 South Africa ; it is usually seen singly or in pairs circling about at 

 a great height in search of food; its flight is very powerful and 

 swift ; while on the ground it closely resembles the Pharoah's 

 Vulture (Neophron) in gait and habits. Its food consists chiefly of 

 carrion and bones, which it is stated to be able to digest with great 

 ease and rapidity ; Ayres found the vertebrae of an ox as well as the 

 remains of a dassie (Procavia) in the stomach of one examined by him ; 

 it is also said to kill sickly lambs and sheep, but the stories 

 which are told of its attacking men and full-grown sheep appear 

 to be devoid of foundation. 



No observations appear to have been made in regard to the 

 breeding habits of this bird in South Africa, but the allied European 

 species builds a large nest of sticks lined with soft material on some 

 inaccessible ledge of rock and lays only one egg of a pale but lively 

 brownish- orange . 



Many legends are told about this remarkable-looking bird ; the 

 ancients believed that it carried bones too large to swallow up into 

 the air and then let them drop in order to break them, and from 

 this habit gave it the name " Ossifragus " {i.e., bone breaker). The 

 late Col. Bowker wrote that among the Boers it is supposed to be 

 the raven let out of the Ark, and that it is considered very unlucky 

 to do it any injury ; family sickness, insolvency, loss of cattle and 

 sheep, are all evils likely to befall anyone who interferes with it. 

 The European species differs from the present one in having the 

 tarsus feathered right down to the toes. 



Genus XIII. CIRCAETUS. 



Type. 

 Circaetus, Vieill. Analyse, p. 23 (1816) C. gallicus. 



Beak strong, with regularly curved culmen and a very nearly 

 straight margin to the upper mandible ; nostrils oblique ovals with 

 an osseous margin and partially covered by a few loreal bristles ; 



