292 THE BOOK OF BIRDS 



slaughter that is going on. Southern Russia is not a 

 favourite home of the Vulture, but when the Crimean 

 War broke out, and the mud and snow around Sebastopol 

 was littered with dead horses, enormous numbers of these 

 birds made their appearance. They had come thither 

 from Asia Minor and the wild mountainous regions still 

 further east, and even from as far afield as the Atlas 

 range in North Africa, so the Arabs averred. 



When, in the early days of the terrible Indian 

 Mutiny, the British army was encamped on the Ridge, 

 before Delhi, waiting to capture the city, "carrion birds 

 never seen so far north came in flocks to the camp." 

 They were welcome visitors, for " there was much illness 

 among our troops, and where these birds had been at 

 work the ground was cleared of much that poisoned 

 the air. 



All such times as that of the Abyssinian War, or the 

 Afghan War, or the campaign against the cruel Dervishes 

 in the Soudan, have meant the flocking of the Vultures ; 

 and the late war in South Africa furnished many a horse 

 and mule to be devoured as soon as the noise of the 

 fighting had died away. 



Writing home during that war, a young cavalry oflicer 

 thus refers to these birds : " The Vulture (Aasvogel) is 

 everywhere. Alas ! the carcasses are there in their 

 thousands, and the huge, brown, hideous birds sit in 

 packs round their prey, while dark specks coming together 

 from every quarter of the sky add, every moment, to the 

 list of guests. In an hour a dead horse is a skeleton 

 covered with a skin. How the creatures manage to do 

 their work through the tiny holes they bore in the skin is 

 a marvel. Disturbed, they hop away with outstretched 

 wings, for all the world like boys racing tied up in sacks, 



