THE VULTURES 309 



A three-year-old baby girl, named Anne Zurbuchen, 

 had been taken up to a part of the mountain-side (it was 

 in the Bernese Oberland) where her parents were busy 

 getting in the hay. She was laid down, as peasant babies 

 often are, in some shady corner of the pasture, and left to 

 go to sleep. Her father kept an eye on her, but while he 

 was gone to fetch a load of hay, a Lammergeier which had 

 been watching its chance flew down, picked up the child, 

 and carried her off. 



The father's alarm and anxiety when he returned and 

 found his baby gone may easily be imagined. Meanwhile 

 another peasant, coming up the mountain-side by a rough 

 and less-used path, had heard the cry of a child, and 

 wondered whence it came. At that moment a great bird 

 rose and sailed away. Hurrying up to the place, the 

 peasant, Henri Michel by name, found the child lying 

 where the Vulture had put her down. She had wounds 

 on the arm and left hand, where the sharp claws had 

 grasped her, but otherwise she was uninjured. Her shoes 

 and socks and her little cap had fallen off during her 

 strange journey through ihe air, as if she had kicked and 

 ^ruggled a little ; but of course she was too young to 

 describe exactly what had happened when thus caught 

 up and carried away. 



The wonderful story was all set down then and there 

 in the village records. Habkeren was the village. The 

 little girl lived to be an old woman, and was known to 

 every one by the romantic nickname of Geier-Anni. 



