22 EGYPTIAN BIRDS 
the white and black plumage. But they somehow 
always look untidy birds. This perhaps holds good 
of all vultures when sitting in repose ; their wings 
seem to be too loose jointed, and they hang their 
feathers so as to give the impression that they 
are not firmly fixed in and might fall out, but 
the moment they spring into the air their wings 
gain at once a sort of rigidity, and all the sloppy, 
untidy effect disappears. This bird is certainly more 
often seen than the preceding, since it is not afraid 
of the haunts of man; but one is not at all certain 
that it is really commoner. In all the representa- 
tions of this as of other birds, the old Egyptian 
artists have a curious habit of depicting their birds 
with their legs stretched out too far in front, and 
looking as if the bird were in danger of falling over 
backwards. 
Once as we were drifting by a bit of sand-bank, 
the river being very low, I remember well an awful- 
looking, unrecognisable object, dirty, dishevelled, 
and, as children say, “very bluggy,” coming 
towards us over the skyline. It more resembled 
some poor drunk man who had been fighting and 
had got fearfully knocked about, and what bird it 
was, if bird at all, we knew not. Well, this dilapi- 
dated-looking thing walked slowly down the slope 
