The Adjutant. .'5. 53 
his presence is encouraged in towns, where he assists 
the vultures, crows, dogs, and jackals, in performing the 
duties of scavengers. Indeed his rapacity is so great 
that he swallows such innutritious substances as bone 
with such eagerness and relish as to have received the 
name of " Bone-eater" or " Bone-taker." When he comes 
about the houses he requires to be carefully watched, as 
his power of swallowing is so great that a fowl, a rabbit, 
or even a leg of mutton, is disposed of at a single mouth- 
ful. Sir E. Home states that in the stomach of an Adju- 
tant were found a tortoise nearly a foot long, and a large 
black cat ; from which we may see that the Adjutant is 
by no means squeamish in his diet. 
The Adjutant is indeed a very gigantic bird. Its 
wings often measure fourteen or fifteen feet from tip to 
tip, and it is five feet high when it stands erect. 
Dr. Latham, in his " General History of Birds," gives 
some very interesting information about the habits of 
this bird. " One of them, a young bird about five feet 
high, was brought up tame, and presented to the chief 
of the Bananas, where M. Speakman lived ; and being 
accustomed to be fed in the great hall, soon became fa- 
miliar, daily attending that place at dinner-time, placing 
itself behind its master's chair frequently before the 
guests entered. The servants were obliged to watch 
narrowly, and to defend the provisions with switches ; 
but, notwithstanding, it would frequently seize some- 
thing or other, and even purloined a whole boiled fowl, 
wliioh it swallowed in an instant. Its courage is not 
equal to its voracity, for a child of eight or ten years old 
soon puts it to flight with a switch. Everything is 
swallowed whole, and so accommodating is its throat 
that not only an animal as big as a cat is gulped down, 
but a shin of beef broken asunder serves it but for two 
morsels." 
Another species of Adjutant (Leptoptilus marabou) is 
found in tropical Africa. It is even uglier than the 
Indian bird, which has not much beauty to boast of, but 
is valuable not only as a scavenger, but from its fur- 
nishing those beautiful plumes called marabout feathers, 
which are so much used for ladies' head-dresses. 
