Vulture

“ For the wings of the vulture bear him through wind, sun, and heat, hour after hour, without a pause. To see him circling as he hunts down a mountain range a hundred miles or more, one might think that the abnormal breast-muscles never grew weary. He goes over every foot of the ground with his eyes and at the same time watches every other vulture in the sky. Let one of his fellows stop circling and drop earthward on a long incline, and immediately he is followed by all the black crew. They know instantly that something has been discovered. ”

“ The specks have increased to winged creatures, at the great height resembling flies, when presently a rushing sound behind me, like a whirlwind, has been followed by the pounce of a red-faced vulture, that has fallen from the heavens in haste with closed wings to the bloody feast, followed quickly by many of his brethren. The sky has become alive with black specks in the far distant blue, with wings hurrying from all quarters. At length a coronet of steady soaring vultures forms a wide circle far above, as they hesitate to descend, but continue to revolve around the object of attraction. ”

“ A solitary vulture, sitting upon the carcass of some dead animal a few hundred yards off, loomed into the form of a fabulous monster of olden times, with a gory head, and a beak that opened as if to swallow all within his reach. ”

“ Hour after hour, a post at every few yards, and on every post a vulture—a vulture that opened its eyes as he approached, regarded him from its own point of view—that of the Eater whose life is an unending search for Meat—calculatingly, and closed them again with a sigh at his remaining vigorousness. ”

“ Why, a vulture, of course!
Now, what kind of bird was Ben carrying upon his back? Beyond all doubt it was a vulture! The locality in which we had found it, with the carcass near at hand; its stupid behaviour in allowing the hunter to approach so near; its general appearance, with the naked head and neck; all these points confirmed my suspicion. I had read that such is the habit of vultures; that they are so tame in some parts of the world, that one can get near enough to knock them over with a stick; and this is especially the case immediately after they have gorged themselves with carrion. ”

“ A wide rhythmic undulating movement from above downwards, and from below upwards, an undulation recalling the malignant sweep of the wings of a vulture seeking its prey; at times an indescribably revolting grovelling on the earth, as of a spider stooping over its captured fly. ”

“ So the ragged, grey-and-black vulture sits hulked, motionless, like a hoary, foul piece of living rock, its naked head and neck sunk in, only the curved beak protruding, the naked eyelids lowered. Motionless, beyond life, it sits on the sterile heights.
It does not sleep, it stays utterly static. When it spreads its great wings and floats down the air, still it is static, still this is the sleep, a dream-floating. When it rips up carrion and swallows it, it is still{86} the same dream-motion, static, beyond the inglutination. The naked, obscene head is always fast locked, like stone. ”

“ So closely does the parent vulture incubate, that she allows herself to be completely buried on her nest beneath the drifting snow. On these hanging steeps the eyries are overlooked from above, yet not a vestige of the sitting vulture can be seen until she is disturbed by a blow from an axe on the trunk, or by a shot fired—then off she goes, dislodging a cloud of snow from her three-yard wings as she launches into space. ”

“ A single Vulture, for example, sees a dead or dying sheep, and swoops down upon it. The other Vultures which are flying about in search of food, and from which the animal in question may be concealed, know perfectly well that a Vulture soars high in the air when searching for food, and only darts to the earth when it has found a suitable prey. They immediately follow its example, and in their turn are followed by other Vultures, which can see their fellows from a distance, and know perfectly well why they are all converging to one spot. ”

“ A visit to the Zoological Gardens comforted the little one, however, after she got over her first fear of the animals. There they saw a vulture, like a lady in a cell, looking sadly out of a window, the train of her grey and brown dress trailing on the ground. ”

“ To seize the offender in his mighty grasp, bear him off to the Caucasian Mountains, and bind him fast to a great rock, was but a moment’s work. There a voracious vulture was summoned to feast upon his liver, the tearing of which from his side by the bird’s cruel beak and talons caused the sufferer intense anguish. ”

“ There is something peculiarly appropriate in employing the Vulture as an image of strength and swiftness when applied to warriors, the bird being an invariable attendant on the battle, 347 and flying to the field of death with marvellous swiftness. All who had ever witnessed a battle were familiar with the presence of the Vulture—the scene of carnage, and the image which is employed, would be one which commended itself at once to those for whom it was intended. ”

“ Already a thousand changes have commenced. Forces innumerable have attacked the dead. The rapidity of the vulture, with its keen scent for animal decay, is nothing to that of Nature's ceaseless agents now at full work before us. ”

“ I have frequently observed that the day after the planter had burnt the trash in a cane-field the aura vulture was sure to be there, feeding on the snakes, lizards and frogs which had suffered in the conflagration. I often saw a large bird (very much like the common gregarious vulture, at a distance) catch and devour lizards; after shooting one it turned out to be not a vulture but a hawk, with a tail squarer and shorter than hawks have in general. The vultures, like the goat-sucker and woodpecker, seem to be in disgrace with man. ”

“ I have, in many hundred instances, seen the vulture feeding upon small objects under rocks, bushes, and in other situations, where it was utterly impossible that the bird could have discovered them but through the sense of smell; and we are to recollect, that the habit of the vulture is that of soaring aloft in the air, and not that of foraging upon the ground. ”

“ At last I reached the vulture and saw that the poor thing had tucked away its head, and was to all appearance asleep. I cast myself on it and secured it, and saw that its eyes and nostrils were so choked with sand that it could scarcely breathe. I made the Ābdār [251] carry it till we reached the shrine. Not having enough food for the hawks, I bought a fat young sucking-lamb, [252] and killed it. The liver and heart were given to the vulture, which, when the wind subsided, was duly released.
I could have captured gazelle by the same method had it not been for their sense of smell. ”

“ If the picture in the British Museum, and the cut in Bontius, be faithful representations of a creature then living, to make such a bird of prey—a vulture, in the ordinary acceptation of the term—would be to set all the usual laws of adaptation at defiance. A vulture without wings! ”

“ Passing on to the birds which frequent the Alps, we must first notice the bearded vulture, the lämmergeier of the Germans, which once was common, but now only holds its own here and there in some lonely mountain fastness. Although preferring living prey to carrion, still in many ways it is closely allied to the true vulture. The upper part of the body is a greyish-brown hue, the under side white, tinged with reddish brown. ”

“ In the first case the visitor will notice the strongbearded vulture of the Alpine and Himalayan mountains. The next six cases (2-7) are filled with the varieties of the Vulture, including the American, carrion, black, and king vultures; the South African sociable vulture; the angola vulture from Congo; and, towering above all, the great condor of the Andes, with his immense breadth of wing. The vultures, with their fierce and cruel aspect, are, nevertheless, cowardly birds, and feed rather upon dead bodies than venture to kill for themselves. ”

“ Faster and ever faster she walked, the farther down she got, till the boy with the flock could scarcely keep up with her, and where the way was steep she struck the iron point of her staff into the soil and swung herself down with a mighty spring, so that only the vulture in the air could follow her path over cliffs and crevasses. Often both herdsman and flock vanished in the mist behind her ”

“ Kind Providence has conferred a blessing on hot countries in giving them the vulture; He has ordered it to consume that which, if left to dissolve in putrefaction, would infect the air and produce a pestilence. When full of food the vulture certainly appears an indolent bird; he will stand for hours together on the branch of a tree, or on the top of a house, with his wings drooping, and, after rain, with them spread and elevated to catch the rays of the sun. ”

“ THE vulture never drops from the heavens to seize his prey upon the desert but some other vulture views his plunge and follows swiftly. Other vultures see the second, and in a few minutes their victim finds a row of them before him and the air dark with their wings. ”

“ With much flapping and croaking, the vultures pulled it about until it was dead, and then devoured it.
On another occasion a black vulture came from high in the air to alight near two full-grown opossums following a narrow cattle trail. ”

“ How does the vulture soar so wonderfully? Nobody is quite sure about it. Often for hours there is no motion of the wings, as far as anybody has been able to make out, and a soaring vulture seems to be able to move as easily against the wind as with it. You'll not be surprised to hear that it takes time to learn to fly like that—a whole year. ”

“ The vulture is wonderfully fitted by nature for the part it has to fill as "scavenger" abroad, this being the name they often go by. It is large and strong, so that the carcase of a horse or a buffalo is not too much for it to attack. Its legs are strong, but not armed with sharp claws like those of birds that feed on living prey. Its wings are long and wide, and its bones, though thick, [113] unusually light, so that the bird can remain an immense time poised in the highest regions of the atmosphere. ”

“ The vulture alone as the emblem of protection is frequently figured with outstretched wings across the ceilings of the passages, particularly those of the royal tombs of the XIXth dynasty. There is perhaps no sight in the animal world more imposing than one of these birds, stretched out with a span of some nine or ten feet, hanging in the air close overhead; it is natural that it should have excited the admiration of man, and not being hurtful it readily came to be honoured as a type of maternal care. ”

“ In the vulture, the head is turned to stone, the fire is in the talons and the beak. In the hoary, glassy hyæna, the loins are turned to stone, heavy, sinking down to earth, almost dragged along, the fire is in the white eyes, and in the fangs. The hyæna can scarcely see and hear the living world; it draws back on to the stony fixity of its own loins, draws back upon its own nullity, sightless save for carrion. The vul{87}ture can neither see nor hear the living world, it is one supreme glance, the glance in search of carrion, its own absolute quenching, beyond which is nothing. ”

“ Of all birds I think the vulture is the most graceful in its flight, with its immense wings, which measure from tip to tip seven and sometimes nine feet, extended without a movement as they circle in the air. One day I was out on foot after some blue wildebeest, with my rifle, near the dry pan Bakillara; I came upon about 100 of these birds, who were too late for a feast upon a buck, the bones of which had already been picked quite clean, when they took flight and disappeared. ”

“ They mount high into the air and float on outstretched pinions 3000 or 4000 feet or more above the level of the earth, and thence scan its surface with eager eye. When the hand of death strikes any terrestrial creature, down comes the soaring vulture. ”

“ THE VULTURE. This strange looking bird is also a bird of prey; but it feeds generally on dead carcases or offal. There are several kinds of vulture. The largest of all birds of prey is the Condor, a South American species. There is also the King Vulture, a native of the same country, called so not from its size, for it is the smallest of the race, but from its elegant plumage. Mr. Waterton, the naturalist, relates a little story of a King Vulture, which seems to show that, though so much smaller, this bird is regarded with some degree of reverence by the common vultures. ”

“ As the vulture has become a rare bird in France, inhabiting only a few localities where there are very high and inaccessible rocks, and where man is crestfallen in the presence of nature, it is to be hoped that they will not be driven from the great gorge of the Tarn by being too frequently shot at in the breeding season, when they are obliged to show themselves at all hours of the day. ”

“ But, if an animal is killed in thick grass, eight or ten feet high, the vultures will seldom discover it. I have frequently known the bodies of large animals, such as elephants and buffaloes, to lie for days beneath the shade of the dense nabbuk bushes, unattended by a single vulture; whereas, if visible, they would have been visited by these birds in thousands.
Vultures and the Marabou stork fly at enormous altitudes. ”

“ The vulture, therefore, generally preserves in Græco-Latin tradition the heroic and divine character which it has in Indian tradition, although its voracity became proverbial in ancient popular phraseology. Lucian calls a great eater the greatest of all the vultures. ”

“ Scarcely is the poor creature unloaded, however, and left to perish upon the sand, before there will appear in the far-away sky a cloud of vultures, at first mere specks in the blue atmosphere, swooping with lightning speed towards the dying animal, whose bones they immediately strip with terrific voraciousness. ”

“ THE VULTURE OF THE ALPS. ANONYMOUS.
[The following stirring poem is highly dramatic. The reader should, as far as possible, realize the feelings of the shepherd-parent as he sees "the youngest of his babes" borne in the iron-claws of the vulture high in mid air towards his golgotha of a nest. Much force of attitude and gesture is not only admissable, but called for, as the agonized father leans forward following the flight of the vulture.] ”