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CHAPTER VII. 
VULTURES — LOATHSOME FEEDERS — STRENGTH OF. — - 
SNAKE-EATER. MODE OF KILLING SERPENTS. 
HAWKS— CHARACTER OF. HAWKING FOR BUSTARDS. 
VALUE OF. ICELAND FALCONS MUCH PRIZED. — 
FALCONRY IN FORMER DAYS. CONTEST WITH 
HERONS. MODES OF CATCHING. THE SPARROW- 
HAWK. ANECDOTES. THE GLEAD, OR KITE. 
HERONS. — FOOD OF THE HAWK TRIBE THEIR DIS- 
POSITION. — THE HAWK SACRED TO THE EGYPTIANS 
AND TURKS. 
VULTURES 
Are nearly allied to the Eagles in point of size and 
some of their habits; they yet differ from them con- 
siderably in others: generally speaking, they may 
be easily distinguished by the head and part of the 
neck being either quite naked, or covered with a 
short down. Instead of ranging over hill and valley 
in pursuit of living game, they confine their search 
to dead and putrefying carcasses, which they prefer; 
and justly merit, by the voracity with which they 
devour the most offensive carrion, the name of 
Scavengers, in some countries, where they are never 
destroyed, in consequence of the good they do, by 
consuming the bodies of animals that might, hut for 
the assistance of the Vultures, breed a pestilence 
in the hot climates where they most abound. A 
traveller in Africa, having killed two buffaloes, and 
directed his party to cut them up piece-meal, and 
hang the various joints on the branches round their 
tents, that they might he dried up under the 
scorching beams of a burning sun, found himself 
