6 
VULTURIDjE. 
usually in places inaccessible and in a perpendicular 
cliff; that it lays in the month of April one or two eggs, 
which are hatched about the end of May; and that the 
young ones remain in the nest till July, before which 
they are incapable of flight; that of four sets of eggs 
taken in Western Barbary, there were two pairs and two 
single ones.” 
This confirms the account sent me by M. Tandon. 
The Egyptian Vulture is nowhere so frequent as in 
Egypt, and particularly about Cairo, where it was a very 
great breach of order, at the time Bruce wrote, to kill 
one. In this and other towns it occupies the roofs of 
houses, in company with black kites, hawks, crows and 
turtle doves; all forming, says Sonnini, a distinct popu¬ 
lation, not less numerous, but more peaceable than that 
below. 
Bruce thinks that the Arab name Rachama, still ap¬ 
plied to this bird, does not allow us to doubt that it 
was the emblem of parental affection, which is frequently 
mistranslated Eagle in our Bible. 
In South Africa Le Vaillant found a pair attached to 
most of the dwellings of the natives, generally seated 
upon the fences with which they inclose their cattle, 
where they are not only uninjured by the owners, but 
are also objects of pleasure to them, eating greedily even 
what they refuse. 
They are occasionally collected in numbers round 
their food like the larger Vultures, and Sonnini states 
that during the French occupation of Egypt, the first 
sound of the cannon brought these and other birds of 
similar tastes from every direction to the summons. 
The eggs of this species differ considerably in form 
and colour; whilst some have the usual contour, as in the 
second figure of the plate, others are widest exactly in 
