:i;8ii. 
A VULTURE'S NEST. 
473 
of Nature has not painted the skins of snakes with less beauty than 
the phimage of birds. 
No part of Natural History is less studied, or more in want of 
regulation, than the Order of Serpents, and if travellers could be 
persuaded to try the method I have now described, the combined 
results of their collections would, most probably, very soon dispel 
this confusion, and raise the study of OpMology to a level with that 
of Quadrupeds, or Birds. For naturalists cannot fail to have re- 
marked that the different branches of the science are more studied 
and better understood, in proportion to the facility with which the, 
objects of each branch are collected and preserved. 
I ought not in this place to omit mentioning, that, on an occa- 
sion, about a year later, when one of my Hottentots brought me a 
large caterpillar, the colors of which were exceedingly beautiful, and 
its delicate marks beyond the power of imitation, I was induced to 
try the experiment of preserving it in the manner I had adopted for 
the serpents. In this I met with exactly the same success; and which 
was afterwards fully confirmed by several other trials. But as the 
time required for making a collection of these, must have been taken 
from other affairs of more importance, and as the possession of insects 
in the caterpillar state only, would have been of little use to science, 
and merely amusing curiosities, I collected very few objects of that 
kind. This hint may, perhaps, be the more valuable, as many dif- 
ficulties have been found hitherto in the art of preserving the larvse 
with their natural colors ; a desideratum which this method will 
accomplish, if ten years be considered sufficient for proving their 
permanency. 
But, to return to our travelling. The country, for many miles, 
abounded in thick bushy olive-trees, which, by their pleasing, soft 
appearance, greatly relieved the uniformity of the landscape. Many 
of these clumps were twenty feet in diameter, and nearly as much 
in height. 
In one of them, a Hottentot found a Vulture s nest, with a single 
yoiing one not yet fledged, and which he brought to me. It was 
covered only with down, which gave it the appearance of being 
3p 
