Diurnal Birds of Prey.
Vultures are amongst the fiercest of these birds; and as most of the kinds are particularly fond of carrion, they have been called Nature's scavengers. The true vultures are only found in the Old World. Their flight, though slow, is powerful, and long sustained. They rise, whirling round and round, to a great height in the air, and descend in a similar manner. They build among inaccessible rocks; and of the two kinds known in Europe, the nest of the grey vulture has never yet been met with.
The American vultures are remarkably large and fierce; and the most interesting among them are the king vulture and the condor of the Andes. The condor is supposed to ascend to a greater height in the atmosphere than any other living creature. Humboldt, indeed, has calculated that it will ascend perpendicularly to the height of six miles; "and to this vast height," as he expresses it, "the condor is seen majestically sailing through the ethereal space, watchfully surveying the airy depth in quest of his accustomed prey." The eyries or nests of the condor are generally about 15,000 feet above the level of the sea. There, perched in dreary solitude, on the crests of scattered peaks, at the very verge of the region of perpetual snow, these dark gigantic birds are seen silently reposing like melancholy spectres.
CONDOR AND HARPY EAGLE.
Image
The condor is accused of attacking children and carrying them off to its nest; but this is incorrect, as it is proved by naturalists to be incapable of holding any heavy weight in its claws. It makes no nest, but lays its eggs on the bare earth. It feeds principally on dead animal matter, and though its usual station is on the peaks of the mountains, it sometimes descends to feed among the plains and valleys. On these occasions it is sometimes seen, first, as a mere speck in the clouds, and then growing larger and larger as it descends, till at last it pounces upon its prey. When the condor is feeding, it appears quite absorbed and heedless of everything around it; and it seems so careless where the prey is, that a female, now in the French Museum, was found at sea sitting on the dead body of a floating whale.
The condor is a large bird, from three to four feet in length, with an extent of wing sometimes reaching from ten to twelve feet. "In riding along the plain," says Sir Francis Head, "I passed a dead horse, about which were forty or fifty condors: many of them were gorged and unable to fly; several were standing on the ground devouring the carcass; the rest hovering above it. I rode within twenty yards of them; one of the largest of the birds was standing with one foot on the ground, and the other on the horse's body: the display of muscular strength as he lifted the flesh, and tore off great pieces, sometimes shaking his head and pulling with his beak, and sometimes pushing with his leg, was quite astonishing." The next morning Sir Francis was informed that after he had passed a contest had taken place between one of his men and a condor. The man, who was a Cornish miner, had a great desire to possess one of these birds, and perceiving that one of them seemed completely gorged, he jumped off his horse and seized the bird by the neck. "The contest was extraordinary, and the rencontre unexpected. No two animals can well be imagined less likely to meet than a Cornish miner and a condor; and few could have calculated a year ago, when the one was hovering high over the snowy pinnacles of the Cordillera, and the other many fathoms beneath the surface of the ground in Cornwall, that they would ever meet to wrestle and hug upon the wide desert plain of Villa Vicencia. My companion said he never had such a battle in his life; that he put his knee upon the bird's breast, and tried with all his strength to twist its neck, but that the condor, objecting to this, struggled violently; and also, as several others were flying over his head, he expected they would attack him. He said that at last he succeeded in killing his antagonist; and, with great pride, he shewed me the large feathers of the wings;" but the struggle had evidently been a most severe one.
The king vulture is a very ornamental species, the fleshy portions of its head and neck being red, orange, and purple; the collar at the base of the neck bluish grey; the quill feathers and tail black; and the under part of the body white. It derives its name of the king vulture from its habit of driving away the turkey buzzard, or common vulture of the Americans, in a very tyrannical manner from its prey; so that it should rather have been called the tyrant vulture, than the king.
It was long doubted by some naturalists whether the turkey buzzard, or common American vulture, found its prey by the sight or by the smell; but Mr. Waterton, who is decidedly our first British ornithologist in all that relates to the habits of birds, has ascertained that it has keen powers of scent; and a curious circumstance is related in Gosse's Birds of Jamaica, which illustrates the subject. The poultry-yard of the barracks of St. Andrews had been repeatedly robbed, and on the night of January the 20th, 1840, the dogs belonging to the barracks flew upon a man, who was going along the road, so vehemently, that the soldiers lodged him in the guard-house. Two days after his apprehension on suspicion, and when he was about to be discharged for want of sufficient evidence, the major belonging to the barracks "observed some carrion vultures hovering about a spot in the fields, and on sending to see what was the matter, a Kilmarnock cap, containing a dead fowl and some eggs, tied up in a pair of old trousers, was found very near the spot where the prisoner was caught; and as the clothes were proved to be his, the vulture was, in this case, decidedly the means of the crime being brought home to him."
The lammer-geyer of the Alps is nearly allied to the vultures, and it is supposed to be the same as the Father Long-Beard mentioned by Bruce in Abyssinia. "On the loftiest summit of the mountain of Lamallon, while the travellers' servants were refreshing themselves after the fatigues of a toilsome ascent, and enjoying the pleasures of a delightful climate, and a good dinner of goat's flesh, a lammer-geyer suddenly made his appearance among them. A great shout, or rather cry of distress, attracted the attention of Bruce, who, while walking towards the bird, saw it deliberately put its foot into a pan which contained a huge piece of meat which was boiling for the men's dinner. Finding the temperature, however, somewhat higher than it was accustomed to among the pure gushing springs of that rocky and romantic region, it suddenly withdrew its foot, but immediately afterwards settled upon two large pieces of flesh which lay upon a wooden platter, and transfixing them with its talons, carried them off."
The falcon family are remarkable for velocity of flight. A falcon sent from Andalusia back to its home in the Canary Islands, was found in Teneriffe sixteen hours after it had taken its flight from Spain, the distance being not less than 752 miles; and a falcon belonging to Henry II. of France, which made its escape from Fontainebleau, was retaken the next day in the Island of Malta, where it was recognized by the rings on its legs, having made the journey at the rate of at least seventy-five miles an hour.
THE GOLDEN EAGLE.
Image
Eagles are, however, the most magnificent of all the birds of prey. The golden eagle, which inhabits the Alps, is one of the most magnificent of the tribe; and this noble bird, which is occasionally found in Scotland, is abundant among the pine-clothed hills of Norway.
The sea eagle is an exceedingly magnificent bird in appearance, but the American species is cowardly in its habits, and is said to prefer the labours of others to its own. "Elevated," says Wilson, "on the high dead limb of some gigantic tree that commands a view of the neighbouring shore and ocean, he seems calmly to contemplate the motions of the various feathered tribes that pursue their busy avocations below, till at last, high over the rest, hovers one whose action instantly arrests his whole attention. By its wide curvature of wing and sudden suspension in the air, he knows the new comer to be the fish-hawk, settling over some devoted victim of the deep." The fish-hawk darts into the water, the clapping of its wings reaching the ear as it disappears in the deep, and makes the surges foam around. In a moment the fish-hawk emerges, struggling with its prey: but as it mounts into the air it is chased by the sea-eagle, each exerting its utmost to mount above the other. The eagle being unencumbered, rapidly gains upon the fish-hawk, which, just as its opponent reaches him, with a sudden cry of despair drops his fish, which the eagle snatches ere it reaches the waters, and bears away to his nest.
The harpy is a large bird of prey belonging to the eagle family which dwells chiefly in the forests of Guiana, making its nest on a tree, and carrying off young fawns and sloths of a year's growth with the utmost ease. This creature is said to be capable of cleaving a man's skull by a single blow of its bill.
The chicken-hawk is a kind of buzzard, and in Gosse's Birds of Jamaica, a curious instance is mentioned of the care which the female of this rapacious bird takes of her young. A large nest was observed near the top of an immense cotton tree, into which the old birds frequently entered. The gigantic dimensions of the tree, and the smoothness of its trunk, rendered it very difficult to examine the nest. At length, however, two young birds were observed to emerge from it, and to try their powers of flight. The gentleman who has recorded this circumstance relates, that "he distinctly saw the parent bird, after the first young one had flown a little way, and was beginning to flutter downward,—he saw the mother, for the mother surely it was,—fly beneath it, and present her back and wings for its support. He cannot say that the young actually rested on, or even touched the parent;—perhaps its confidence returned on seeing support so near, so that it managed to reach a dry tree—when the other little one, invited by the parent, tried its infant wings in like manner. This touching manifestation of parental solicitude is used by the Holy Spirit in the Song of Moses, to illustrate the tenderness of love with which Jehovah led his people Israel about, and cared for them in the wilderness. 'As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings; so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange God with him.'—(Deut. xxxii. 12. See also Exod. xix. 4.)"
The African sparrow-hawk, which is extremely rapacious, is the only bird of prey which is gifted in any way with the power of song. It is popularly called the chanting-falcon; and in its native country it will sit for half-a-day perched on the summit of a tall tree, uttering its incessant but monotonous song.