fences which bound the enclosures for their cattle. They are, to a certain degree, domiciled and harmless. 
The people do them no injury ; on the contrary, they are rather glad to see and encourage them, because 
they clear the premises of all the offal and filth they can find. In default of other food they eat frogs, 
lizards, and snakes.” 
In the Eastern Atlas, according to Mr. Salvin, “ wherever a cliff exists in the mountains that surround 
the tablelands, sure enough it will be occupied by a pair of these birds ; generally speaking, the nests of 
A^. percnopterus are not so inaccessible as those of Gyps films. Otie nest I visited, near Kef Laks, I could 
reach with my hand from a perfectly accessible ledge ; it was in a crevice of a rock, and entirely composed 
of sticks. The bird begins to lay about the 10th or 12th of April.” — Ibis, 1859, p. 180. 
Speaking of the bird as observed by him in Palestine, the Rev. H. B. Tristram informs us that Neophron 
percnopterus is “ universally distributed, and is equally abundant in the plains of Sharon and the naked hill- 
district of the south. Breeds in great numbers in the valley of the Kedron, heaping up its enormous nest 
of sticks, rubbish, and old rags on every convenient ledge. While the adult bird was to be seen throughout 
the whole country, I never observed a single specimen in the sombre livery of youth. One very fine bird 
paid the penalty of its curiosity while we were sitting on a rock on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. It 
made several swoops, as though anxious to share our chicken, and, hovering over us, fell dead at a discharge 
of No. 7 shot.” — Ibis, 1859, p. 23. 
“That very useful but despicable scavenger ‘ Pharaoh’s hen,’ as Europeans term the Egyptian Vulture, is 
a handsome bird on the wing ; and the distribution of the black and white in its plumage has a fine effect as 
it circles over head, or sweeps past the traveller down some deep ravine. It never breeds in colonies, and 
seldom are two nests to be found very near together ; but it is the most universally diffused of all the 
Raptores of Palestine during summer, it being impossible to travel a mile or two in any part of the'country 
without putting up a pair. It has no dislike to the neighbourhood of man, and fearlessly resorts to the 
dunghills of the villages to feed. No filth, vegetable or animal, seems to come amiss to it ; and I once 
surprised a pair in the act of gorging at a heap of spoilt figs. The Neophron is strictly migratory, begins 
to return about the end of March, and by the middle of April the country is full of them. The first egg 
obtained was laid near the plain of Gennesaret on April 1st ; and our last pair of fresh eggs were found on 
May, 24th in the mountainous region near Hermon. The nests, though always in the cliffs, were generally 
low down, and comparatively easy of access. I took an egg from a nest in an arched passage through the 
rocks, close to the village of Mejdel, and so little concealed that every passer-by could see it ; and a child might 
have climbed up to it. The eggs are rarely alike, one being invariably much more richly coloured than the 
other, though, before incubation bas been long continued, both become alike sodden and discoloured by filth. 
There is a rich variety in the colouring of the fresh eggs, from a deep russet-red to a paler red, uniformly 
diffused over the whole surface ; sometimes they are mottled and blotched, at others faintly spotted, and 
even almost a pure white. The nest is an enormous congeries of sticks, clods of turf, bullocks’ ribs, pieces 
of sheepskin, old rags, and whatever else the neighbourhood of a village or camp may afford, and is generally 
somewhat depressed in the centre. The Neoj)hron is more plentiful in Gilead and Moab than elsewhere ; 
at least we obtained more nests in those regions, to which the birds seem to be atiraeted by the enormous 
flocks and herds of the Bedouin, on the ordure of which they largely feed.” — ^Tristram in Ibis, 1865, p. 249. 
Messrs. Elwes and Buckley state, in their “ List of the Birds of Turkey,” that they saw “ only one or two 
of these birds in Greece, and that in Macedonia they are by no means common during the winter months. 
The ‘ Ak baba,’ as it is called by the Turks, does not associate with the other Vultures during the breeding- 
season. M. Alleon says that the Egyptian Vulture arrives in spring, and remains till the beginning of autumn, 
but is found during that time in great numbers in the town of Constantinople. It seems to distinguish 
between Turks and Christians; for in Pera, which is chiefly inhabited by foreigners, it does not breed; 
while in Stamboul it breeds on the cypresses, mosques, and roofs of the tanneries, where it is never molested 
by the Mussulmans, and repays its hospitable treatment by carrying off the garbage in the streets.” 
“ The Egyptian Vulture,” says Lord Lilford, “ is very common in Andalucia and, probably, all other parts 
of Spain, and follows the plough, as observed by Captain Widdrlngton. In fact, during my last visit to 
Andalucia, in almost every instance when I observed plougblng, there were a pair or more of these Vultures 
waiting about, and picking up the grubs turned up by tbe ploughshare. They are very fearless of man, and 
are conspicuous objects against the tawny-brown hills so characteristic of Southern Spanish scenery.” 
Modern research has determined that this bird does not go to India, its place there being supplied by a 
very nearly allied species, the Neophron ginginianus. 
The Plate represents : — an adult, about two-tbirds tbe natural size ; and the young, from Mr. Woodward’s 
specimen, very much reduced. 
