egyptiyvn vulture. 13 



oak region ; but all the trees have long ago been cut down, except an 

 isolated grove here and there round a convent or a graveyard. Now it 

 may be said to be the scene of a constant struggle between rocks and 

 herbage. Sometimes the greatest part of this region is represented by a 

 series of nearly perpendicular cliffs dropping down into the lower regions ; 

 but it generally consists of ranges of sloping valleys, too rooky to admit of 

 cultivation by spade, but having sufficient herbage upon them in summer 

 to supply food to flocks of sheep or goats. It is in this region that the 

 Egyptian Vulture breeds. Above is two thousand feet of rocks and pines, 

 and, finally, two thousand feet of rocks and snow. The Egyptian Vulture 

 breeds in the same cliffs year after year ; and Dr. Kriiper was kind enough 

 to engage for me a Greek peasant who knew almost all their breeding- 

 places in the Parnassus. He was a wonderful climber, having in his youth 

 been accustomed constantly to scale the cliffs in quest of wild bees' nests. 

 When we reached a cliff in which there usually was a nest, he used to 

 scream and yell in order to alarm the bird. Sometimes his clamour was 

 successful, and the bird flew off and revealed the fact that the eyrie was 

 occupied ; sometimes we had to fire a shot before she would betray her 

 treasures; and once or twice our efforts were in vain, and we came to the 

 conclusion that the nest was empty. At one nest we found the best way 

 was to let a little Greek boy down by a rope to take the eggs. Another 

 nest was robbed by my Greek servant with the help of a rope ; but the 

 third was taken by sheer climbing. It almost made one's hair stand on 

 end to watch the old man in his stocking-feet gradually mounting higher 

 and higher up the perpendicular cliff until, when he had reached the nest 

 and held out the eggs for me to see, the height was so great that without 

 my binocular I could not have recognized them for eggs. A few small 

 sticks, with a little dry grass or wool, was all the nest we found. The eggs 

 were usually two, one much more richly coloured than the other. It is 

 said that three eggs are sometimes found. The fourth nest I took with 

 my own hand. The eggs were laid in an old nest of the Lammergeir, in 

 one of the mountain-gorges near the Pass of Thermopyla;. It was not 

 very difficult of access, several ledges assisting the ascent materially. In 

 the cleft behind the nest were piles of the broken shells of the tortoise, 

 which the Lammergeir had eaten. 



The eggs of the Egyptian Vulture are huffish or creamy white in ground- 

 colour, spotted with brownish red. Sometimes the spots are confluent all 

 over the egg, paler in places (where the colouring-matter appears to have 

 been rubbed off when it was wet) . Every intermediate type occurs between 

 this and e^gs in which the colouring-matter is distributed in blotches and 

 small and large spots, which only become confluent at the large end, or, in 

 very exceptional cases, at the small end. They vary in length from 2-9 to 

 2-3 inches, and in breadth from 2-1 to 1-9 inches. 



