existence, for dead bodies are not to be found everywhere. 
Possessing powers of sight infinitely greater than ours, he 
mounts aloft for the purpose of taking observations. If 
nothing ‘‘ toothsome”’ can be seen from his vast range, he 
turns his attention to the movements of such of his fellows 
as may be up on the same errand miles away. Should he 
see one swooping earthwards he instantly tracks him down, 
and is soon at the feast. This accounts for the mysterious 
way in which vultures will gather together to the feast, in a 
place where an hour ago not one was to be seen. A caravan 
of camels, perchance, is making its toilsome way across a 
burning desert. One falls by the way. In a few hours its 
bones will be picked clean by a horde of these ravenous 
birds. 
Longfellow sang the song of the vultures hunting in 
stately verse : 
“Never stoops the soaring vulture 
On his quarry in the desert, 
On the sick or wounded bison, 
But another vulture, watching 
From his high aerial lookout, 
Sees the downward plunge and follows, 
And a third pursues the second, 
Coming from the invisible ether, 
First a speck, and then a vulture, 
Till the air is thick with pinions.” 
Darwin, in his wonderful Journal of a Voyage Round the 
World, gives a marvellously vivid word-picture of the largest 
and most interesting of all the vultures, the Condor of the 
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