230 
The Animal-Lore of ShaJcspeares Time. 
CHAPTER X. 
As if to give importance to the most prominent repre- 
lture sentatiye of a class which is often endowed 
with virtues beyond its merits, the second in 
rank is sometimes unfairly depreciated. Thus, while the 
lion is ennobled the tiger is debased. The eagle is held 
up for admiration, while the vulture, its rival in size and 
really its superior in usefulness, has in all ages been 
regarded with dislike. Mr. Bennett observes (Gardens of 
the Zoological Society , 1830) that, ignoring the fact that 
both birds are acting alike in accordance with their 
peculiar instincts, and both fulfilling a part in the 
economy of nature— 
“ man has chosen to fix upon the one a character for bravery and 
generosity, and to brand the other with the epithets of base, cowardly, 
and obscene. The vulture, perhaps the most useful and certainly the 
most inoffensive of birds, has been consigned to perpetual infamy, 
while the eagle, in the true cant of that military romance which has 
ever borne so great a sway over the passions of mankind, has been 
exalted, in common with the warrior that desolates the world, as an 
object of admiration, and selected as the type of military glory.” 
The Vulture is one of the most valuable scavengers of 
the East. The repulsive nature of its food, together with 
its ungainly appearance and great voracity, are some 
excuse for the disgust it has inspired. From a passage 
in Ben Jonson, it would appear that vultures were once 
