ACCII'ITKKS. JJlKDS. V ULTUKII).K. 2.37 
title of predaceous birds, as they rarely attack a living 
prey, but content themselves with feeding upon tlie 
tiesli of such animals as have already died. Their 
Fig. 96. 
Head of the Tawny Vulture (Gyps fulviis I 
favourite food, in fact, is carrion, in the midst of which 
they revel in a state of the highest enjoyment, often 
gorging themselves to such a degree with this savoury 
banquet, that they become utterly incapable of flight. 
From the nature of tlieir diet they also acquire an 
abominable odour;' and taking these facts into considera- 
tion, it is hardly to be wondered at that most people 
feel a certain degree of disgust associated with the idea 
of a vulture. But in the hot countries frequented by 
these birds, they are viewed with very ditl'erent eyes ; 
tliere their mission as scavengers is recognized. They 
are seen pouring down in flocks upon an abundant siqr- 
ply of their favourite food, and soon clear away every 
vestige of animal matter, even from a large carcase ; 
tlius preventing those pestilential effluvia which would 
s[)ecdily emanafe from a mass of animal matter exposed 
to the tropical sun, and poison the air in its vicinity. 
Viewed in this light, the vultures must be regarded 
as benefactors of the human race in the countries 
frequented by them, and in most oriental cities they 
combine, in their own proper persons, the offices of 
inspectors and removers of nuisances. Under any cir- 
cumstances, the vultures are certainly undeserving of 
tlie opprobrium that has been heaped upon them even 
by professed naturalists, such as Burton and his fol- 
lowers, whose statements have still some influence upon 
the popular mind. It is true, that if we a[)ply to the 
characters of animals the moral tests that we employ in 
discriminating those of our fellows, the vultures may be 
called cowardly, lazy, and gluttonous, and the eagles 
may be magnified into models of courage and noble- 
ness. But this is hardly fair, for each of these birds is 
equally fitted for its peculiar sphere of activity. The 
vulture feeding on carrion, and even preferring this to 
freshly-killed meat, is not likely to exhibit much of 
what is called courage in attacking other animals, and 
in devouring as much as he can at once, he is but ful- 
filling his instincts ; and on the other hand, when we 
calmly investigate the so-called courage of the eagle, 
we find it hardly so great as is commonly supposed, for 
scarcely any of the animals that he attacks have the 
least power to defend themselves against his terrific 
talons. 
It has long been a question amongst ornithologists 
whether the vultures discover their food by the sense 
of smell or by that of sight ; and the older writers on 
natural history generally assumed that it was by the 
former of these senses that the birds received the first 
indication of the presence of their favourite nourish- 
ment. Probably they were Igd to this conclusion rather 
by the well known odorous properties of the delicacies 
in question than by any other consideration ; and it 
must be confessed that this solution of the matter 
seemed perfectly natural. It is now, however, a good 
many years since some ornithologists ventured to raise 
a doubt as to the accuracy of this view, denying that 
the vultures were endowed with the sense of smell in 
a sufficiently high degree to account for their percep- 
tion of carrion at a distance, and urging the claims of 
the sense of sight to the honour of guiding these birds 
to their food. The controversy was carried on with a 
vehemence which soon left the ordinary amenities, sup- 
posed to prevail amongst philosophers, at a distance; 
and it seems now to be established, in opposition to the 
older writers, that it is really by the sense of sight, at 
all events in part, that the vultures discover their food. 
Thus it has been found, that when the body of an 
animal, even in an advanced stage of putridity, is con- 
cealed by a covering of any kind, the vultures do not 
come near it ; but as soon as the covering is removed, 
they descend upon the carcass and speedily devour it. 
It is also said that a carcass may lie untouched in a 
similar manner under the trees of the forest, although 
the vultures may frequently sail over the spot ; whilst 
the same object could scarcely lie for a few minutes in 
the open country without being surrounded by numerous 
devourers. These facts seem to show indubitably, that 
it is to acuteness of vision that the vultures are usually 
indebted for earliest .intelligence of a feast in prospect. 
Amongst the vultures, as in the monkeys, we find 
that the members of the family inhabiting the two 
hemispheres are distinguished by certain jjeculiarities 
coinciding with their geographical distribution. One of 
the most important of these consists in the structure of 
the nostrils, -which, in the species inhabiting the Old 
AVorld, are separated by a partition, so that they appear 
as mere holes pierced in the cere on the sides of the 
beak ; whilst in the American species the partition is 
wanting, and the nostrils form an opening from ore 
side of the beak to the other. 
THE ARABIAN VULTURE {VuUur rnonachm) — 
Plate 1, fig. 1 — is not, as might be supposed from its 
name, peculiar to the peninsula of Arabia ; its range 
extends over the whole of Northern Africa, and it also 
occurs in Persia, India, and several parts of the south 
of Europe, especially in mountainous districts, such as 
the Pyrenees, Switzerland, the Tyrol, Hungary, Italy, 
and Spain. In the Pyrenees it is known by the name 
of the A rriaji. We have mentioned it first from its being 
the type of the genus Vultur, as restricted by modern 
authors, distinguished by having the nostrils round, and 
the head or neck more or less covered with a short 
down. The Arabian Vulture is a large species, mea- 
suring about four feet, in height. The general colour 
of its plumage is a blackish-brown, but sometimes with 
an intermixture of tawii}' ; the head is covered with a 
