37 
Ornithology of Cyprus. 
to taxidermists, damped even his desire to make a skin of it. 
Miss Bate mentions this species casually as sometimes to 
be seen in company with the preceding, and Glaszner sent 
Madarasz an old male taken on the 2nd of March, 1902, in 
the Larnaca neighbourhood. The Black Vulture we found to 
he by no means so common as the Griffon, but we saw perhaps 
a dozen examples at different times. Mr. Barrett, who had a 
pair haunting his farm, shot for us, on April the 5th, 1909, a 
large male, which we were, fortunately perhaps for ourselves, 
unable to take in hand in time to preserve more of it than 
the head, wing, and feet. However, it measured 11 ft. 6 in. 
across the wings. When working the Kyrenia mountains in 
the third week in March, Horsbrugh and I came across one 
pair which were obviously nesting in the neighbourhood of 
Buffavento. Disturbed by a shot, they kept high in the 
air, and we were unable to make up our minds whether 
their eyrie was a huge nest at the top of a mighty pine tree 
at the bottom of a deep gorge into which we could, from 
the edge of a precipice some 500 ft. above, see quite clearly, 
or was in one of a series of crevices in the face of a towering 
cliff in an even more inaccessible situation. 
Through the kindness of Mr. Bovill, the locality was 
watched by one of the Forest Guards, and eventually on the 
28th of April, the egg, highly incubated, was obtained 
from the former site ; it contained a live chick. In May 
and June, Horsbrugh met with the Black Vulture again, 
breeding on this occasion on the Troodos range, the nest 
being likewise placed at the top of a pine tree some forty 
feet from the ground. The young bird was taken by the 
employes of the Cyprian Mining Co. and was kept for the 
local director, Mr. A. Artemis, a leading Athenian advocate, 
and an enthusiastic member of the Cyprus Natural History 
Society. Mr. Nicolls informs me that he has noticed this 
Vulture nesting for some years past on the Troodos moun¬ 
tains, and the bird itself is well known to him and to 
other local sportsmen. It may therefore now be safely 
regarded as a somewhat uncommon resident in the 
island. 
