FROM SPAIN. 485 
quite tame young eagles, and appeared to look with disdain 
on all that went on around him. 
The Bearded Vulture stands alone, no other raptorial bird 
really resembles it. The Egyptian Vulture comes nearest to 
it in its flight and the form of its tail, but differs from it 
so greatly in all other respects that the two birds cannot be 
said to have any true common characteristics such as exist 
among individual species of the other groups of raptorial 
birds. Its place appears to be between the eagles and the 
vultures, and it is, in my opinion, equally unlike and equally 
distant from both. Its flight is not at all like that of the 
vultures, and is also quite different to that of the eagles. 
In that respect, as well as in its habits and behaviour, it more 
resembles the large falcons; while its attitude, either when 
sitting on rocky pinnacles or shooting swiftly along, low over 
the ground, and the way in which it tumbles about when 
playing high in the air, remind one only of the latter birds. The 
observer who has never before met with a Bearded Vulture 
will at once recognize it, for, in spite of its size, it can never 
be mistaken for an eagle or a vulture. At a distance, indeed, 
it always looks to me like a large Peregrine; but when it is 
near and its full size is apparent, it presénts quite a new 
picture to the ornithologist, being totally unlike any other 
bird ; for its goat-like head, with the black stripes above the 
eyes, bristly beard that can be seen far away, long body 
carried horizontally when flying, cuneate tail, long narrow 
wings, and the mixture of hoary grey, black, and bright 
yellow in its plumage, unite in giving it an extraordinary, 
I might almost say a dragon-like, appearance. 
The sight of a Bearded Vulture involuntarily suggests the 
thought that here must be a creature that does not belong to 
the fauna of the present day, but is a gradually expiring 
relic of an earlier epoch. And so it really is. Species indis- 
