existence, for dead bodies are not to be found ever5nvhere. 

 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 wiU 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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