THE VULTURES. 



THERE are two ways of looking at a Vulture, and of 

 thinking of him. One way is to regard him as a 

 detestable carrion-gorging scavenger. The other 

 way is to notice his steady piercing eye, his strong taloned 

 feet, his huge and tireless wings. 



The one view of him calls up a picture of the shimmer- 

 ing sands of the desert, and a group of hook-beaked bird- 

 monsters tearing to pieces a dead body. The other view 

 shows us those desert sands lying stretched out like a 

 map, far below, and above, in the burning glaring blue, a 



pair of giant pinions 



"strenuously beating 

 The silent boundless regions of the sky." 



The one thought fills us with disgust, the other with 

 wonder and admiration. 



But if we are to have a right and true idea of this 

 great bird we must blend the two. A bird of prey is 

 never " nice in its habits," and the Vulture has the repu- 

 tation of being more greedy and gross than perhaps any 

 of his meat-eating fellows. Some of his tribe indeed — the 

 small Egyptian Vulture, for example — are contemptible 

 cowardly creatures, with nothing noble about them, and 

 horribly foul in their way of feeding. But others, like the 

 Griffon, and even the Black Vulture, have only to rise 

 into the air and spread their enormous wings, to be called, 

 without hesitation, magnificent. 



In many parts of Africa and Asia, Vultures may be 



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