THE VULTURES 291 



is built for sailing, with scarcely an effort and without 

 weariness, hour after hour, in the air, now hanging 

 motionless, now sliding forward like an aeroplane. But 

 the sea bird contents himself with a moderate height 

 above the waves, whereas the Vulture delights to rise to 

 dizzy heights. 



Travellers have often remarked oh the mysterious way 

 in which, as soon as an animal falls sick or drops dead, 

 several Vultures will almost at once appear, though there 

 may not have been a single one anywhere in sight before. 

 The explanation is that high overhead — too high to be 

 seen by human eye — one of these great birds has been 

 hovering, and noticing everything that has occurred. 

 His marvellous telescope-like eyes watched the caravan 

 winding across the sandy plain ; saw the sick camel or 

 horse or waggon-ox stagger and sink down ; noticed the 

 harness or the load being taken off it, and the dead body 

 dragged to the side of the track, and the party move on. 



" Food ! " cries the great bird, and, closing his wings, 

 he shoots downward through those thousands of feet of 

 shining air — "drops into view," as one writer has said, 

 " like a fragment from another planet." 



Instantly, another Vulture who has been soaring at 

 a different height and perhaps half a mile distant espies 

 his neighbour's movement, and follows him in one great 

 swoop. He in turn is noticed by another, and he by yet 

 another, until the dead camel is surrounded by a grim 

 company of these desert-scavengers, ready and eager to 

 strip his carcass to the very bone. 



War always provides a ghastly feast for the Vultures. 

 As if by some magical means, but really in the way I 

 have just described, even those of the tribe whose usual 

 haunts are hundreds of miles away, get to know of the 



