168 FIFTEEN DAYS ON THE DANUBE. 
Servian mountains, which, lit up by the afternoon sun, were 
shining in their loveliest colours, while from the vale below 
me sounded the tinkling of the cattle-bells and the merry 
shouts of the herdsmen ringing up into the hills. 
I must have been quite close to the outskirts of the woods, 
and I fancy that this was undoubtedly the furthest point 
reached by us during all our excursions in the Fruska-Gora, 
One of the Cinereous Vultures was circling round the hill- 
tops, and seemed to have already become quite unsuspicious ; 
but though I sometimes heard the rush of its wings, and its 
croaking cry, yet it did not approach the nest for a good half- 
hour. 
Several times it seemed to me as if there was a smaller 
bird in company with the vulture, and I was thinking 
whether it could be an eagle, when all at once my attention 
was attracted by a tremendous rush above my head. It was 
not at all like the steady wing-beats of an approaching 
vulture, but much the same sort of noise'as one often hears 
out chamois-shooting, when a stone, loosened by the game, 
rolls down a precipice. This sound came nearer and nearer, 
and suddenly I saw a ball, formed of two birds entangled 
‘together with their huge wings hanging loosely down. At 
first I did not know what to make of the whole affair, for this 
extraordinary apparition instantly vanished, and I heard it 
heavily strike the nest, from the edge of which such quantities 
of twigs were falling, that, sitting as I was so very close to 
the tree, I could not look up without getting some of them in 
my face. 
There I sat in utter amazement, while the disturbance 
inside the nest kept increasing, for I had no idea of what was 
going on above me, and more thana minute must have passed 
before I cautiously looked up, and saw at one time the great 
wing of a Cinereous Vulture, and at another a smaller pinion 
projecting from the nest. At last the bald head of the 
