. Birds in flight . me errand miles away. Should hesee one swooping earthwards he instantly tracks him down,and is soon at the feast. This accounts for the mysteriousway in which vultures will gather together to the feast, in aplace where an hour ago not one was to be seen. A caravanof camels, perchance, is making its toilsome way across aburning desert. One falls by the way. In a few hours itsbones wiU be picked clean by a horde of these ravenousbirds. Longfellow sang the song of the vultures hunting instately verse : Never stoops the soaring vultureOn his quarry in the the sick or
. Birds in flight . me errand miles away. Should hesee one swooping earthwards he instantly tracks him down,and is soon at the feast. This accounts for the mysteriousway in which vultures will gather together to the feast, in aplace where an hour ago not one was to be seen. A caravanof camels, perchance, is making its toilsome way across aburning desert. One falls by the way. In a few hours itsbones wiU be picked clean by a horde of these ravenousbirds. Longfellow sang the song of the vultures hunting instately verse : Never stoops the soaring vultureOn his quarry in the the sick or wounded another vulture, watchingFrom his high aerial the downward plunge and a third pursues the second,Coming from the invisible ether,First a speck, and then a vulture,Till the air is thick with pinions. Darwin, in his wonderful Journal of a Voyage Round theWorld, gives a marvellously vivid word-picture of the largestand most interesting of all the vultures, the Condor of the 26. Blackgame Andes—one of the largest of flying birds, having a wing-span of something over nine feet: When the condors are wheeling in a flock round andround any spot, their flight is beautiful. Except when risingfrom the ground, I do not recoUect ever having seen one ofthese birds flap its wings. Near Lima, I watched several fornearly half an hour, without once taking off my eyes; theymoved in large curves, sweeping in circles, descending andascending without giving a single flap. As they glided closeover my head, I intently watched, from an oblique position,the outUnes of the separate and great terminal feathers ofeach wing; and these separate feathers, if there had beenthe least vibratory movement, would have appeared as ifblended together; but they were seen distinctly againstthe blue sky. The head and neck were moved frequently,and, apparently, with force, and the extended wings seemedto form the fulcrum on which the movements of the neck,body, and the tail ac
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1922
