CHAPTER I. 
THE CINEREOUS VULTURE. 
“ For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the Eagles he gathered together.”— 
Matthew xxiv. 28. 
When we speak of the economy of Nature we must not 
forget the important part that Vultures play in the same, 
nor omit to allow their claim to a high position in 
Nature’s household. It is they whose business it is to 
purify the air in southern countries from those poisonous 
gases which are evolved from masses of putrefying animal 
matter, the pestiferous exhalations from which would be 
disadvantageous to the well-being of the living. In the 
high latitudes of the North, Nature buries her dead under 
a mantle of snow, where they may lie for a thousand 
years without decomposing, for all the liquid portions of 
the corpse turn to crystals. In the South, those wander¬ 
ing, semi-domesticated hounds of death, the Vultures, are 
assisted in disposing of a carcase by an army of insects. 
Before decomposition, rapid as it is in these countries, 
has transformed the carcase into its original elements, 
these vigilant watchers of the dead greedily and rapidly 
clear away what yet remains, and thus prove themselves 
important and highly useful members of Nature’s 
economy. 
