Il8 ALLEN’S naturalist’s LIBRARY. 
plumage in these Griffon Vultures was more thoroughly studied. 
Unfortunately for science, the habits of the Griffons and the 
food they eat, or rather, perhaps, the condition in which they 
eat it, renders the preservation of Vultures such an unsavoury 
task that it is very difficult to get any naturalist to undertake 
the task of preserving a series of specimens. My friend the 
late Mr. \V. Davison, who skinned many Vultures, told me 
that he always poured a good dose of carbolic acid into the 
gullet of the birds, before he dared to attempt the task of 
skinning them. Anyone who sees the Bengal V ultures {Pseudo- 
gyps bengalcnsis) sitting on the Towers of Silence in Bombay, 
row upon row, packed tightly side by side, and knows the 
name of the food that distends their crops, may be excused 
from wishing to make a Museum specimen of them, even 
if he saw that their state of plumage was interesting, or abso- 
lutely necessary to be described for a irroper understanding of 
the life-history of the siiecies. 
Range in Great Britain. — A very rare and occasional visitor. 
Though rumours are afloat that other Griffon Vultures have 
been seen and recognised by competent observers, whose testi- 
mony would be received without hesitation by all ornitholo- 
gists, there is but a single e.xample which is so far authenticated 
as British. In the spring of 1843, a specimen, which Mr. 
Howard Saunders affirms to be a young bird {i.e. a bird of 
the previous year), was caught by a boy on the rocks near Cork 
Harbour, and was presented by Lord Shannon to the Museum 
ol Trinity College, Dublin, where it still remains. 
Range outside tlie British Islands. — A bird like the Griffon 
which undoubtedly wanders far in search of food, and, an 
absentee from a district on one day, is present on the next "in 
numbers, if a battle has taken place, and food is plentiful is 
not the easiest bird of which to trace the exact geographical dis- 
tribution. Furthermore, much of our information is a matter 
of conjecture, as few people bring back skins of the Vultures 
they see, that identification may be rendered certain. 
The Indian Grifibn is allowed to be a separate race or sub- 
species under the name of Gyps fuhescens, Hume, but its 
range is very doubtfully determined, and so the eastern limits 
of the Griffon of Europe is still a matter of conjecture. 
