144 ALCONIFORMKS 



constructing a bulky shallow nest of sticks, grass, and wool almost 

 invariably on trees, and laying one, or rarely two, white eggs 

 blotched with dark red. The plumage is brownish -black, with a 

 ruff of lanceolate feathers below the bare neck, and black down 

 on the crown and throat. The naked skin and cere are of a livid 

 flesh-colour, the feet yellowish ; the bill is black, the iris brown. 

 Lopliogyps occipitalis, of East and South Africa and Senegal, is dark 

 brown with blacker remiges and rectrices, and some white on the 

 wings ; the reddish head and neck are bare, except for white down 

 on the crown, which thickens towards the occiput ; the ruff is 

 brown, the abdomen and crop are white, the feet pinkish ; the bill 

 is orange with bluish cere, the iris brown. Otogyps amirularis, of 

 JSTorth-East and South Africa, called the " Eared Vulture " from the 

 fleshy lappets (of the same pinkish colour as the naked head, cere, 

 and feet) on the sides of the neck, is brown, with blackish wings and 

 tail, varied by white down on the thighs and chest ; a brown rufl' 

 covers the hind-neck, while the bill and irides are yellow. 0. calvus, 

 the smaller Pondicherry- or King-Vulture of India, Burma, and 

 Siam, is black. These birds usually hunt in pairs, driving all 

 intruders except Eagles from their prey : they construct immense 

 stick nests, often used in successive years, on thick bushes or trees ; 

 straw, leaves, and the like being added for lining, and one white 

 egg, often with red-brown markings, deposited. Gyps fidvus, the 

 Griffon Vulture, which has occurred in Germany, Poland, and once 

 in Britain, breeds from the Spanish Pyrenees through Southern 

 Europe and Northern Africa, reaching lat. 50° N. in Russia, and 

 extending eastward to North India, by way of Turkestan, where 

 it overlaps the larger form G. himcdayensis. It is fawn-brown 

 above and streaky buff beh iw, with nearly black wings and tail, the 

 adults having a downy white ruff, represented in the young by a 

 brown collar ; the head is thinly covered with white hairs, the 

 beak is horn-coloured with blue-black cere, the feet are plumbeous, 

 the irides orange. This active though cowardly species is often 

 seen basking on rocks at mid-day ; it flies or hovers with easy 

 movements, and can soar until it almost disappears in the sky. It 

 has a growling note. The nest, a mass of sticks and grass of vari- 

 able size, is placed on cliffs, and contains one or even two white 

 eggs, sometimes with rusty markings. Incubation lasts forty days, 

 the young remaining three months in the nest. G. holli of South 

 Africa is much paler ; G. riippelli, of the north-east and south of 



