THE VULTURES 293 



until they have got sufl&cient impetus to rise in a heavy 

 flight." 



In East Africa, the great-billed Marabou storks and the 

 Vultures will often meet at the same banquet. The 

 former have a vulture-like power of sailing high in the air 

 for long together, but when they descend, tempted by the 

 same horrible meal, a single Marabou will keep his hook- 

 beaked companions at a distance till he himself has 

 supped. Says Mr. Chapman, in his recent book On Safari : 

 " The Marabou is really master of the feast. Stalking into 

 the crowd, he sets the huge Vultures flapping aside in sore 

 dismay from that terrible bayonet-like beak." 



All over the warmer parts of our globe there are to be 

 found one or more members of the Vulture family. For 

 the largest of all we must go to South America. 



The CONDOR of the Andes is the mightiest-winged of 

 all land birds. One that Darwin shot, in Patagonia, 

 measured eight and a half feet from wing-tij) to whig-tip, 

 and four feet from beak to tail ; and he does not speak of 

 this specimen as being of unusual size. Some idea of the 

 mighty framework of a Condor's wing may be gained from 

 the fact that in quite a moderate-sized specimen one of 

 the quill feathers was two feet two inches in length, and 

 these quills are often as thick as the base of a Lee-Metford 

 cartridge. 



The sea-coasts and river-valleys see the passing of 

 those giant wings, but the real home of the Condor is 

 the solitude of the mountain fastnesses. He is a bird of 

 the beetling j)recipices — places that make the ordinary 

 traveller dizzy to gaze at. These are his retreat, his 

 citadel, and from the craggy battlements he loves to fling 

 himself into the air and sail away and away. 



The heights to which he will soar are simply amazing. 



