BIRDS OF PREY 
279 
to the little birds seem all the more wonderful. The sparrows seem 
to know that they are safe from the claws of the eagle, even though 
they are living in his eyrie, and they know equally well that while they 
are there, they are safe from pursuit by the swift sailing sparrow- 
hawk and falcon. Therefore they choose an eyrie for their nesting 
place. In one eyrie not less than fifty-two sparrow nests were found, 
which shows at the same time the friendliness of the eagle and the * 
size of his fortress. 
The Kite is common in Africa, and it is, like the hawk, a bird 
of prey, resembling the latter in its forked tail and its manner of 
flying. It builds its nest on sticks in a large tree, and occasionally on 
rocks. It feeds on moles, frogs, rabbits, snakes, and fish. The length 
of the bird is about two feet. 
The Vulture. —Even those birds, it is found, which, like the 
vultures, feed upon putrid flesh, and seldom kill prey for themselves, 
find their food far more by sight than by sense of smell. In order to 
prove this fact a gentleman placed a large piece of carrion upon the 
ground, and covered it over with grass; the odor was most offensive, 
and yet not a vulture noticed it, although several were not very far 
away. He then removed a part of the grass, whereupon the birds 
caught sight of the carrion at once, and flocked to the spot as soon as 
he retired, thus showing that their sight, and not their scent, had 
warned them of the presence of their food. 
It seems almost certain, too, that these birds ‘not only search 
for food themselves, but also watch one another meanwhile, so that if 
one more fortunate than his fellows should espy a dead animal, all 
those within sight of him notice him descend to the feast, and hurry 
to the spot in order to obtain a share in the banquet. These, in their 
turn, again, are being watched by others, which follow them; so a 
constant succession of vultures is attracted to the carcass, until it is 
completely devoured. In this manner during the Crimean War, when 
the battlefields were strewn with the bodies of men and horses, almost 
every vulture for hundreds of miles around was attracted so that the 
usual haunts of the birds were almost entirely deserted. This could 
hardly have happened had they depended upon their sense of scent 
and not upon their keenness of sight; and we can only account for it 
