,, NATURALIST IN INDIA. t? 



Every one at aE conversant with the habits of Asiatic 

 vultures must agree with me, that they discover a carcase as 

 quickly when fresh as when putrid ; it would be preposterous 

 therefore to aver that scent alone guides these animals from 

 such vast altitudes to their prey ; moreover, I believe that in 

 the former case scent has little to do in the matter, and even 

 when putridity exists, I question whether the bird does not 

 discover the presence of the substance by sight, long before it 

 could possibly be within the influence of smeU : one has only 

 to consider the distance, currents of air, etc., intervening be- 

 tween the bird and its prey, to see at once the impracticability 

 of scent being the only agent employed.* 



The lammergeyer or bearded-vulture (Gypaetus barbaiics\ 

 is, without doubt, the " Eoc " of Arabian Nights, and the 

 " Nisser " mentioned by Bruce in his Travels in Abyssinia. 

 Heber, in his Indian Jowrnal, speaks of a large vulture as the 

 " condor of the mountains," but evidently he had never ex- 

 amined one, as he describes it having a bald head and neck.t 

 Specimens from the Alps, Africa, and the Himalayas, do not 

 differ in any weU-marked degree. It appears to me that the 

 mistakes have arisen in the usual manner — ^by taking imma- 

 ture birds as types of the species, and in not making allow- 

 ances for effects of climate, etc. In the Journal of the 

 Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. iii., Hutton describes a collar on 

 the Himalaya bird as characteristic ; but I agree with Mr. 

 Hodgson this , cannot be accepted as a specific distinction, 

 being by no means regular. Again^ in many Himalayan 

 specimens the hinder part of the tarsus is bare at the joint, 

 although not all the way down as in the Abyssinian indi- 



* See the discussions of Audubon and Waterton. 

 + May he not he describing one of the large bald Indian birds ? 



