rigours of the climate, and keep fat and lively under conditions
that would be fatal to other birds of their great bulk. The
powers of flight of the lâmmergeier are truly superb, and it is a
magnificent sight to see one circling, without an effort, around
some precipitous mountain-peak, an occasional flap of the wide
wings sufficing to impart all the impetus required. The old
stories of lammergeiers carrying off babies from Alpine villages
are pretty well discredited nowadays ; certainly the Tibetan
bird appears to feed entirely on carrion, associating with griñón
vultures aroúnd the carcases of yaks, sheep and other animals.
On one occasion I put up a hare, which ran for a hundred yards
or more along a bare hillside, a few yards below a lâmmergeier
that was sailing along close to the ground. The latter took
absolutely no notice of the hare, which it might easily have
seized. No doubt a lâmmergeier may occasionally take a living
animal, but I fancy that it would only do this if the beast were
sickly or very young. There were hundreds of lammergeiers
about the camps of the Commission at Kamba jong and Tuna,
and I had daily opportunities of studying their habits, but I
never saw them eating anything but offal or dead animals. The.
length of the lámmergeier’s wings prevents the, bird from rising
at once from the ground ; when it wishes to fly, it is obliged to
hop forwards for some yards, in order to get up a little “ way,”
and it then presents rather a grotesque appearance. The weak,
querulous cry also seems very inappropriate to such a noble-
looking bird. During the summer months the lâmmergeier
retires to the higher mountains, where it makes its large nest on
some rocky ledge ; but, even then, it comes down to the plains at
times, especially in the evening. Thus, both at Gyantse and;
Lhasa, thèse birds were always to be seen. The wedge-shaped:
tail and peculiar flight enable one to recognise a lâmmergeier
immediately, even at a great distance.
The raven .(Corvus cor ax) is an even more familiar bird in
Tibet than the lâmmergeier. Although the Tibetan bird is the
same species as the European raven,- it differs from the latter in
being usually larger. Ravens occurred at all the camps of the
Tibet Frontier Commission, and where these were more or less
permanent, the birds literally swarmed, disputing with mongrel
dogs for the possession of offal. My own previous acquaintance,
with wild ravens was mostly acquired in Iceland. In that
country ravens are tolerably common, but they are so shy and
wild that most of one’s observations have to be made through
the medium of field-glasses. It was, therefore, a pleasant surprise
to me to find the Tibetan raven so utterly devoid of fear
that one could stand within five yards of a bird, who, quite undisconcerted
by such a close scrutiny, would confine his protest
at the most to a croak or two, and resume his unsavoury repast
with undiminished appetite. In spite, however, of the Tibetan
ravens’ tameness, they still retain the wariness common to all
the Córvida; although in a land where firearms are rarely
carried and where ravens are not molested, they cannot possibly
associate the sight of a gun with danger to themselves. I found
them apparently fully alive to my fell designs whenever I went
after them 4i on business.” As usual, with this species ravens
in Tibet are early breeders, I found a nest containing young
birds on the 6th of April, at an elevation of about 15,000 feet.
The inhabitants of Lhasa keep several species of birds in captivity
; considering what excellent pets ravens make, I was rather
surprised to see no tame ones there.
The Himalayan griffon vulture (Gypshimalayensis) is another
common bird occurring up to the greatest altitudes. The
wonderful rapidity with which numerous vultures appear about
a dead animal (although a few minutes before its death no more
may have been visible than a solitary bird soaring high up in
the firmament) is a familiar fact, but it nevertheless impresses
one afresh each time that one witnesses i t ; especially is this
the case among the bare mountains of Tibet, where such a large
tract of country must be required to provide sufficient food for
each bird.
Pallas’s sea-eagle (Haliaetus leucoryphus), a large fulvous-
colour bird, with a whitish forehead and a broad white band
across the tail, was also somewhat numerous, and, in the plains
of Gyantse and Lhasa, the black-eared kite (Milvus melanotis)
abounds. A pair of these kites built their untidy nest on a tree
standing in the garden of the house in which the Commission
was Hiving at Gyantse. This house was under a daily bombardment
from the guns of Gyantse jong for over two months,
and the kites’ nest was directly in the line of fire. Although
jingal balls were whistling through the leaves, qr striking the
branches, of the tree for many hours on almost every day, they