152 WILD LIFE IN CHINA. 



Another visitor to China is the Himalayan griffon, Gyps 

 Himalayensis. He is a bird of the rocks, nesting high upon 

 inaccessible cliffs. Canon Tristram, quoted in "The Royal 

 Natural History," says that he once saw a griffon which had 

 eaten till it could no longer stand, and yet was still continuing 

 its feast lying on its side. No wonder it is said this particular 

 vulture is capable of long fasts. It is not amongst the common 

 visitors to China, but has been seen in the Central provinces. 



Our third representative is Gypcetus barbatus, which is 

 no other than the well-known Lammergeier of the Alps, the 

 bearded vulture. True vultures have the head bare or downy: 

 the lammergeier's is feathered. In this as in some other 

 respects he approaches the eagle family. He, also, is a big 

 bird, some three and a half feet in length and of great wing 

 power. He loves the mountains over whose tops with his 

 eight or nine feet expanse of wing he sails majestically 

 through the blue. His wings and tail are long and pointed, a 

 contrast against those of the ordinary vulture tribe. It is said 

 that the last Swiss specimen was poisoned in 1887, its mate 

 having been killed as long before as 1862! The Asiatic 

 bird seems to be a true vulture in its feeding, and attacks 

 nothing living, unless possibly driven by hunger to do so. It 

 breeds from November to February on inaccessible ledges 

 thousands of feet above the sea. As a rule, there is but a 

 single egg. It is only in the mountainous parts of Mongolia 

 and Manchuria that the lammergeier is ordinarily to be seen, 

 and there, of course, only as a migrant. Its appearances in 

 China proper are extremely rare. Indeed the larger portion 

 of our raptorial birds come and go with the seasons, some 

 leaving, others coming, during the winter or summer as the 

 case may be. 



