Note 113 — Chapter X · THE LAMMERGEYER OR BEARDED VULTURE

It is well-known that the Lammergeyer does not confine itself to dry bones. I once saw one shot in the Tochi valley over a dead fowl laid out as a bait. When shot it was carrying off the fowl in its beak and not in its feet. The most contradictory statements exist regarding its habits. As it sweeps round the hill side, the fowls in the compounds show no alarm and will let it pass within a very few yards of them. At Kingri, in Baluchistan, I saw one stoop at a flock of chukor and sent a sowar to the spot to see what had happened: the man returned with a chukor, unbroken and still warm. Some years ago at Sheikh-budin, the hill station near Dera Ismail Khan, I saw one stoop repeatedly at a mārk͟hor kid, on a narrow ledge on the cliff-face below me. At each stoop the plucky mother lowered her horns to the “charge,” and effectually repulsed the attacks of the assailant. Whether the Lammergeyer was really trying to brush the kid off the cliff, with intent to feed on its mangled remains, or whether it was merely animated by that spirit of mischief that enters into birds as well as beasts, I cannot say. The Pathan shikārīs with me stated that they knew from experience that the former was the case. A shot Lammergeyer shown to a tame monkey will drive it into a paroxysm of terror. Can it be that the latter recognizes in it a natural enemy, or does it mistake it for an eagle?