4 SCAVENGERS OP THE VELD 



young specimens being darker and old birds being almost 

 white. It usually nests in krantzes (cliffs) in the Orange 

 Free State, constructing a rough saucer-shaped nest of 

 sticks on a ledge of rock, or on a boulder. They are some- 

 times placed within easy access on a rocky hillside, and 

 sometimes on steep cUffs, where they can only be reached 

 by means of a rope suspended from above. Years before 

 the war we visited several such nesting sites and found them 

 strewn with the skeletons and feathers of the Vultures. 

 They lay one egg in July or August, usually of a dirty white 

 colour, but sometimes marked with a few brown spots. 



In the Pretoria district they also build in trees, and the 

 Transvaal Museum contains a huge nest of sticks, placed 

 in the fork of a mimosa, containing a half-fledged young 

 bird. Quite a nuinber of these young Vultures were brought 

 to the Pretoria Zoological Gardens from the same locaUty. 



There is another fairly well-known species, the Black 

 Vulture, called by the Boers the Koning Aasvogel (King 

 Vulture) the Otogyps auricularis of science, which is con- 

 siderably scarcer than the ordinary Aasvogel, and is seldom 

 seen in large numbers, generally going about in pairs or in 

 small parties of from five to seven individuals. Mr. L. E. 

 Taylor mentions one exception, in which case he found 

 twenty of them together at Irene, Transvaal. 



This bird is held in apparently high respect by the ordinary 

 Griffon Vulture, a fact well illustrated on one notable occasion 

 in the Maroka district of the Orange Free State in 1894, 

 when about twenty vultures were feeding on a dead dog. 

 Suddenly a new arrival appeared on the scene, and the others 

 scattered, leaving the new-comer, a sohtary Black Vulture, 

 to its lonely repast. It was a strange scene ; there the bird 

 stood wrenching off and swallowing lumps of flesh, while 

 round him in a ring, but at a respectful distance, sat the 



