CHAPTER II. 
THE BEAEDED VULTURE 
(Gypaetus bcirbatus). 
“ She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the 
strong place. From thence she seeketh the prey, and her eyes behold afar off. Her 
youDg ones also suck up blood: and where the slain are, there is she.”— Job, 
xxxix. 28 . 
• 
He who—driven by the pure love of a roaming life, or 
the sublimer spirit of enquiry—has trodden high moun¬ 
tain ranges, and explored their glaciers, has most cer¬ 
tainly, at some time or another, heard a shrill, bold, 
mocking cry overhead, aye, hundreds of feet above him, 
and, scanning the blue ether, has seen a splendid bird 
soaring in space, showing a conscious pride in every 
motion, and still more so in its glance, as it looks down 
like a king from a throne, gliding rapid as an arrow, 
without moving a feather of its mighty pinions. Traveller, 
this glorious bird is the king of the mountains, the Lam- 
mergeir, the true lord of those heights, who looks upon 
man as an intruder. The sun, before whose rays our 
eyes quail, is the light under which it is nurtured; the 
beams—which, in these regions, transform each snow¬ 
flake into a diamond, or cover all, early and late, with 
their purple mantle—are those which encircle its cradle. 
Its home is amid these ragged crags, the glacier is its 
