becoming narrower towards the point. Nostrils naked and diagonal. Tongue
fringed with spines. Head slender and covered with short down, as is most part
of the neck ; above the shoulders a ruff of elongated feathers. Feet strong,
claws slightly hooked ; middle toe rather longer than tarsus, and united at
base to outer toe by a membrane. Wings long ; first quill-feather short, the
fourth the longest. Tail of twelve or fourteen feathers.
I a m indebted to the kindness of Admiral Bowles for the
first notice of the capture in Ireland of the Griffon-Vulture.
In the autumn of 1843 the Admiral was visiting Lord
Shannon, at Castle Martyr, and saw there this Vulture, which
had been caught by a youth on the rocks near Cork Harbour,
in the spring of that year. The bird was full grown; the
plumage perfect, without any of the appearances consequent
upon confinement; there was no reason to suspect that
the bird had escaped from any sh ip ; it was very wild and
savage, and was in perfect health. Not long afterwards Mr.
Thompson observes in the ‘ Annals of Natural History’
(xv. p. 308), his Lordship “ offered the bird to Dr. Ball
for the collection in the Garden of the Zoological Society,
Dublin; but before arrangements were completed for its
transmission it died. The specimen was, by the directions
of Lord Shannon, carefully preserved and stuffed, and placed
at the disposal of Dr. Ball, who has added it to the collection
in Trinity College, Dublin. I t is in adult plumage.”
This species of Vulture, of large size and proportionate
strength, possesses also great sustaining powers of flight,
and has, as might be expected, a very extended geographical
range. In Europe it inhabits Spain, and though visiting
the South of France in considerable numbers, it does not
appear to breed to the northward of the Pyrenees. I t also
occurs in Italy, Hungary, Turkey, Greece, and the Crimea.
I t has been met with in Germany, and it is found in
Sardinia and Crete. In North Africa its range extends from
Morocco in the west to Egypt in the east, and thence southwards,
according to some authorities, even to the Cape of
Good Hope, not occurring, however, on the western side of
the continent. In Asia it frequents Asia Minor, Syria,
Palestine, Persia, and Northern India. I t must be observed,
however, that according to the views of some ornithologists,
several races, if not distinct species, have been confounded
under the name of Gyps or Vultur fulvus, and in particular
that which inhabits Spain and the north-western portion of
Africa, has received the name of Gyps occidentalis. Mr.
Blyth, however, has remarked that a specimen which he
received under this designation from Algeria, was simply a
female of Gyps fulvus, for in the Vulturidce, unlike the
other birds of prey, that sex is always the smaller.
Of late years the habits of this Vulture have been closely
observed by many of those ornithologists whom a spirit of
inquiry, possibly engendered by the earlier editions of this
work, has prompted to wander far from home in the pursuit of
the study to which they are devoted, and there are probably
few exotic birds about which more has been written than the
Griffon-Vulture. Its manners have been examined by these
adventurous naturalists in very many of its haunts, and it
is difficult to select from their accounts, chiefly published in
‘ The Ibis,’ the passages most worthy of citation, where all
are of interest. Since the presumption, however, is that the
bird taken in Ireland, as above mentioned, was of the
western race, it may be advisable to restrict the extracts to
remarks which can only refer to that form.
In Algeria, Canon Tristram mentions that on the occasion
of a Camel being slaughtered in the Desert, which the
Griffon-Vulture does not habitually frequent, it was not till
the next morning that a bird scented, or rather descried, the
prey. “ That the Vulture uses,” he continues (Ibis, 1859,
p. 280), “ the organ of sight rather than that of smell, seems
to be certain from the immense height at which he soars
and gyrates in the air. In this instance one solitary bird
descended, and half an hour afterwards was joined by a
second. A short time elapsed, and the Nubian Vulture
(Otogyps nubicus) appeared, self-invited, at the feast; and
before the bones were left to the Hyaena, no less than nine
Griffons and two Nubians had broken their fast.......................
May we not conjecture that the process is as follows ?— The
Griffon who first descries his quarry, descends from his
elevation at once. Another, sweeping the horizon at a still