Having dealt in Bombay Ducks with what I may perhaps term the domestic vulture of India—Neophron ginginianus, or Pharaoh’s chicken—I do not propose again to discuss this worthy but ugly fowl. Nevertheless, before passing on to the aristocratic vultures, I cannot resist the temptation to reproduce Phil Robinson’s inimitable description of our familiar Neophron: “A shabby-looking fowl of dirty white plumage, about the size of an able-bodied hen, but disproportionately long for its height, pacing seriously along the high road, taking each step with its legs 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 obstruct the footpath, the natives would make way for it. Children let it alone, and dogs do not run after it. So it goes plodding through its day’s work, solemn, and shabby, and hungry, uncomplaining, and poor, and at night flaps up into some tree and quietly dozes off to sleep.” Neophron ginginianus always puts me in mind of the heroes in some of George Gissing’s novels.

Very different are the ways of the other members of the vulture tribe. They are not content to wander about among rubbish heaps and in other still less savoury places in the hope of securing any small morsel. They demand substantial fare; nothing less than a large carcase pleases them. It is true that they have sometimes to put up with garbage of the lesser sort, so that those which have not been successful in their hunt have perforce to gather in the trees near the municipal slaughter-house and await the casting forth of the offal. Their usual method of securing a meal is of the won-by-waiting description. They mount high into the air and float on outstretched pinions 3000 or 4000 feet or more above the level of the earth, and thence scan its surface with eager eye. When the hand of death strikes any terrestrial creature, down comes the 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,” writes: “Just as a child likes to enjoy the consciousness of having possession of a cake, and revels for a while in the pleasurable feeling before taking the first bite, feeling sure that delay will not weaken his tenure, so will an eagle very often toy with his victim, and though within his grasp, defer the fatal grip. At such times his appetite is probably not very keen; or he is in a merry humour and likes the fun of seeing the terror he causes, as he races in his mirth round and round the animal almost paralysed with fear. Or perhaps there is somewhat of a Caligula in his nature, and he considers that the only true enjoyment which is purchased by the acute suffering of others. Be this as it may, he will thus dally with a creature’s anguish, and only after having twenty times swooped down as if to seize it in his talons, do so in reality.”

To call such behaviour on the part of a bird of prey cruel is, I submit, utterly wrong, and based on an altogether incorrect perception of the animal mind. It is my belief that vultures and other raptorial birds do not recognise in the screams of their victims the wails of pain. Their power of reasoning is not sufficient to enable them to interpret the meaning of these cries. How can they possibly know that they are hurting their 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 stick and leave it there to die a lingering death. Now, I readily admit that the Indian villager is not overburdened with brains, but he is capable of simple reasoning, which is more than can be said of any bird. He certainly is not conscious that by putting the head of a live bird into a game stick he is causing unnecessary pain; much more are birds of prey ignorant of the fact that being eaten alive is a most painful experience.

A crowd of vultures gathers round a stricken animal in almost as short a space of time as a mob of gaping Londoners collects round the victim of an accident. Recently, in the 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 reached our machans fifteen or sixteen vultures had assembled round the dead stag, and it was with difficulty that we, from our machans, kept the greedy birds off the carcase.

Vultures are always to be found at the burning ghat. Wood is expensive in many parts of India, so that only the more wealthy completely burn the remains of their dead relatives. For the poor and the parsimonious the vultures complete the work commenced by the fire, so that truer than even its author suspected is Michelet’s description of vultures as “beneficent crucibles of living fire through which Nature passes everything that might corrupt the higher life.” When a body, with the face only singed, is cast on to the Ganges, at least one vulture alights upon it and proceeds to devour it as it is borne 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 strolling along a river bank have I suddenly and unexpectedly come upon a company of vultures squatting in an irregular circle round some object, each fighting with its neighbour for a place at the repast. The vultures are not the only participants. Some pariah dogs run about on the outskirts, every now and then making frantic efforts to wedge themselves in between the vultures and so obtain for their emaciated bodies a mouthful of food. Some crows and kites are invariably present, trusting to their superior agility to snatch an occasional morsel. And in the Punjab some ravens will also be at the feast.

There are several species of vulture in India. Next to the scavenger vulture the commonest is the white-backed species (Pseudogyps bengalensis). This is not a bad-looking bird in its solemn lugubrious way. Its general colour is ashy 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 almost devoid of feathers and their nakedness is accentuated by a ruff or collar of whitish feathers. The bareness of the head makes the large hooked beak look longer and bigger than it really is. The bird is nearly a yard in length.

A yet finer bird is the black, King, or Pondicherry vulture (Otogyps calvus). The back and wings of this species are glossy black relieved by white patches on the thighs. Its bare head 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, when it comes to a carcase, all the vulgar herd of smaller vultures, kites, and crows give way before it, and, as a rule, are afraid to approach until this regal bird has had its fill.

Vultures build huge platforms of nests high up in lofty trees, and, like sand martins, rear up their young in the winter.