Glimpses of Indian Birds

mestic vulture of India-Neophron ginginianus, or Pharaoh's chick

set wide apart, with all the circumspection of a Chinaman among papers, but keeping its eyes as busily about it for chance morsels of refuse as any other professional scavenger. The traffic, both of vehicles and foot passengers, may be considerable, but the vulture is a municipal institution and knows it. No one thinks of molesting it; indeed, if it chose to obstru

e soaring vulture. His earthward flight is observed by his neighbour, floating in the air a mile away, who follows quickly after number one. In a few seconds numbers three, four, five, six, and others are also making for the quarry, so that the stricken creature, before life has left it, is surrounded by a crowd of hungry vultures, and, as the poet has it, "but lives to feel the vultures bick'ring for their horrid meal." Nor do these wait for death to set in before they begin their ghastly repast. It suffices that their wretched victim is too feeble to harm them; they then set to work to tear it to pieces, utterly indifferent to its cries of agony. Such behaviour is characteristic of all birds and beasts of prey. These, in consequence, have been dubbed "cruel" by those who should know better. Thus Bonner, in his "Forest Creatures," writ

heir victim, or that it can feel? They have never been taught that it is most painful to be torn to pieces, and they themselves have not experienced the sensation. How, then, are they to understand that it hurts? An Indian coolie, even, does not appear to appreciate the fact that birds can feel pain, for when accompanying a man out shooting he will pick up a winged snipe or duck and put it, while still alive, in the game stic

course of a shoot in the Terai, the man in the machan next to mine shot a spotted deer, which fell lifeless in an open patch in the forest. By the time the line of beaters had

on the waters of the sacred river; the air and gases in the corpse keep both it and the vulture afloat. Sooner or later a rent causes the gases to escape, then the corpse sinks suddenly and the vulture is often hard put to it to reach the bank, for it cannot fly properly when its wings are wet. The half-burnt corpse is not always consigned to the river, and in these circumstances the scene at the ghat when the living human beings have left it is not one that is pleasant to contemplate. But in India, where Nature's back premises are so exposed, it is not always possible to avoid it. More than once when

hy black-the black of a threadbare coat. Its back is white, but this is usually nearly entirely hidden by the dark wings, and shows merely as a thin streak of white along the middle of the back. The dark grey head and neck are alm

and neck are yellowish red, and there is a wattle of this colour on each side of the head. This vulture, unlike the last species, is solitary, and is called the "King vulture" because

igh up in lofty trees, and, like sand ma