824 
PHARAOH'S HEN. 
"Pharaoh's hen," is the popular sobriquet of another species of 
vulture — the Egyptian, or Neophron percnopterus of the naturalists. 
He is of filthier habits than the griffin, and of a meaner and more dis- 
agreeable aspect. He may be found on all the sand-banks of the river, 
to which he seems to make a point of retiring when gorged ; or he 
frequents the ruined palace-temples of Karnak and Memphis, where, 
perched on a magnificent column, with tail drooping and wings half 
closed, he may be taken for an evil genius brooding over the remains of 
departed splendour. He may be seen, too, on the outskirts of the towns 
and large villages, squatting on the open ground ; the adults with 
yellow plumage, the young of a sombre brown. " If we sailed near 
them," says the Rev. A. C. Smith, " as we often did, when they stood 
with ruffled plumage on a sand-bank, they bore a most astonishing 
resemblance to Cochin-China fowls, and the Arabic name of ' Pharaoh's 
hen ' seemed most appropriate. Occasionally I have seen a flock of 
these most unsavoury birds soaring high in the air This habit 
of congregating for aerial manoeuvres was something quite unlooked- 
for by me. I had always supposed that vultures, like carnivorous 
animals generally, were not gregarious, but that when they did 
assemble it was from the common attraction of some putrid filth, and 
that they had come, as we may truly say of this bird, each on his own 
hook. But here they were unmistakably associating, not for business, 
but for amusement — wheeling in circle- about and among, above and 
below one another ; and with all my dislike of the species, I must in 
common candour confess tliat graceful and elegant evolutions they were. 
What, however, has given me the greatest disgust at these unclean 
birds, so that I shall ever shudder to ray dying day at the thought of 
vultures, was the sight of above a hundred of them, of all species, 
congregated on a bank, and gorged to the full with human flesh ; and 
I shall always think of them for the future with a feeling of positive 
revulsion, calling to mind the dreadful banquet on which they had fed, 
and recollecting how, in company with some twenty dogs, which had 
evidently lost home and master in the disturbances, they sat with 
drooping wings and distended crops on the river-bank, sleeping in the 
hot sunshine." 
