470 ORNITHOLOGICAL SKETCHES 
with vultures. Every second fresh arrivals came plunging 
down from above, and I quickly began to number them. Ina 
few minutes there were seventy-five Griffon Vultures and one 
Egyptian Vulture on that one spot; but almost before I had 
finished counting, the birds left the place one after another 
and flapped heavily about. Of the sheep there remained 
nothing but some spots of blood, a little wool, and its bones, 
which lay scattered in all directions. 
This feast of the vultures was a singular and interesting 
scene, and the cracking of bones, the hoarse croaks of the 
birds, the rushing sound of their wings, the snapping of their 
great beaks, and the way in which they pulled and hauled at 
the entrails and extremities of the sheep, and quarrelled and 
fought, created a peculiar and deafening noise. I fired several 
times at them as they were flying round about, but they were 
too far off, and only a few feathers fell; yet even these shots 
did not disturb them, and most of them merely flapped from 
one stone to another. 
For several minutes a young Bearded Vulture, still in the 
dark plumage, was soaring high above the Griffon Vultures, 
and a “Stein” Eagle, allured by the noise of the vultures’ 
feast, also came to the place and settled on the dead branch 
of a stunted tree which grew out of the rocks. I finished it off 
with my rifle, and afterwards the vultures gradually flew 
away in various directions. On my way back I saw some 
of these great birds low down, and even observed many of 
them among the high cliffs of the main valley near the little 
town of Riva de Sella on the sea-coast. 
Throughout Spain the Griffon Vulture is more or less a 
perfectly common bird, I might even say a characteristic 
creature of this wild, stony, thinly populated country. The 
observer will find no difficulty in seeing it at any hour of the 
' day, though generally at a great distance. At the nest, how- 
ever, it is not easy to study it closely, for its dwelling is 
