THE SCAVENGER VULTURES. 
I2I 
Adult Male. — General colour white, with a little tinge of rust- 
colour on the neck-hackles ; the primaries black, externally 
ashy-white at the base ; the secondaries dark brown, exter- 
nally ashy-white; the head bare and yellow, with a little scanty 
down on the throat, and with a few whitish feathers in front 
of the eye ; chest bare ; bill pale horny-brown ; feet yellowish- 
white; iris red or reddish-brown. Total length, 25 inches; 
culmen, 2'8; wing, i9'2 ; tail, lo'o ; tarsus, 3'5. 
Adult Female. — Similar to the male in colour. 
Young Birds. — Differ from the adults in being blackish-brown 
in colour, with fulvous tips to the feathers. As the birds grow 
older, the mantle and the wing-coverts become more and more 
of an ochre shade, till they gradually assume the white plumage 
of the adults ; fore part of head and neck dirty grey. 
Range in Great Britain. — ^Two specimens are all that have been 
obtained within our limits, and the Egyptian Vulture must be 
reckoned as one of our rarest and most occasional visitants, 
bwo^ birds were observed in October, 1825, in Bridgewater 
Bay in Somersetshire, and one of them, a young bird, was shot. 
In September, 1868, another was killed in Esse.x, at Peldon. 
Range outside the British Islands. — Chiefly an inhabitant of the 
Mediterranean countries, extending eastwards to Central Asia, 
and said to occur also in North-western India. It is found in 
Southern France and throughout the Spanish Peninsula, breed- 
ing also in the Canaries, Madeira, and the Cape Verd Islands. 
1 hence it extends eastwards qn both sides of the Mediter- 
ranean to Egypt and North-eastern Africa, to the Caucasus, 
Persia, and Turkestan. In winter it wanders south through 
Africa down to the Cape Colony. In the Indian Peninsula it 
IS represented by a closely allied form. Neophron giuginia?ius, 
which has a yellow bill, and is rather smaller in all its dimen- 
sions. In confinement Colonel Irby says that it takes three 
years for a Neophron to assume the adult’s white plumage, but 
in a wild state he believes that it is donned with great rapidity. 
Habits — The Scavenger Vulture is a filthy bird, according to 
human notions, but is a useful one in the hot climates where it 
ives. It arrives early in Europe, and the earliest dates of its 
noithward migration near Gibraltar is the 23rd of February, 
