298 THE BOOK OF BIRDS 



Canon Tristram very properly complains that it is 

 unfortunate that we should only have one word, one name, 

 for the whole tribe of Vultures, thus classing together the 

 contemptible and rather small Egyptian Vulture and the 

 great and noble-looking Griffon. And he points out how 

 differently we of to-day regard the Griffon, from the 

 ancient nations of those Eastern lands where he was and 

 is such a familiar sight. 



Some of my readers may have noticed in the sculptures 

 (perhaps in pictures of the sculptures) of Nineveh, the 

 figure of one of the Assyrian gods, represented with a 

 Griffon's head and beak. It is the God Nisroch. And 

 there are plenty of other signs that this fierce and cruel 

 people had found in the Griffon Vulture an emblem that 

 was quite after their own heart. They had noticed so 

 often its magnificent powers of flight, its proud bearing, 

 its keen, pitiless eye, and the fearful tearing power of that 

 great beak. All these things pleased their fancy mightily : 

 they adopted the Griffon as their standard. So did the 

 Persians, at a later date. 



The nesting-place of the Griffon Vulture is in keeping 

 with its character. "While the eagles and other birds 

 are content with lower elevations, and sometimes even 

 with trees, the Griffon alone chooses the stupendous 

 gorges of Arabia Petrsea and the defiles of Palestine, and 

 there in great communities rears its young, where the 

 most daring climber can only reach its nest by means of 

 ropes." 



The Holy Land is much more frequented by tourists and 

 travellers than it was fifty or even five-and-twenty years 

 ago, and such intrusions soon have their effect in scaring 

 away the wilder birds to more lonely districts. But here 

 is what Canon Tristram could say in the " sixties " : " The 



