Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/26

10 the two is not very clearly marked in the popular mind. The translators of our Bible had no notion of it. Modern natural history has disentangled the two names and assigned them to two very different families of birds, the distinction between which in its essence is just this, that, while the eagle kills its prey, the less impatient vulture waits decently till its time comes to die. Popular sentiment persists in regarding the former as the more noble, but there can be no question which is the more useful. It is not easy indeed to realise to oneself the extent and beneficence of the work carried on throughout the length and breadth of India, from year's end to year's end, by the mighty race of vultures. Every day and all day they are patrolling the sky at a height which brings half a revenue district within their ken. The wornout bullock falls under the yoke, never to rise again, and is dragged off the road and left; or the old cow, which has ceased to be profitable and has therefore ceased to be fed, lies down in a ditch for the last time. Before the life has left the old body some distant "pater-roller " has seen it, and, with rigid wings slightly curved, is sloping down at a rate which wipes out five miles in a few seconds. A second sees the first and, interpreting its action, follows with all speed. A third pursues the second, and so on till, out of a sky in which you could not have descried two birds half an hour ago, thirty or forty dark forms are converging on one spot. When they get right over it, they descend in decreasing spirals and settle at various distances and wait for the end like American reporters. When the end comes, if you tire squeamish or fastidious, go away. All that will