BANDITS OF THE AIR.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 68, 2 January 1936, Page 8

BANDITS OF THE AIR.

HUGE BIRDS OF PREY. A great bird in the Dordogne, in the south-west of France, was recently seen in the act of carrying off a lamb weighing about 401 b (states a London journal). The only bird big enough to do this likely to be seen anywhere in Europe is the lammergeier, occasionally observed in the Alps and Pyrenees. It is a vulture, and one of the brigands of the air. The gieatest of the Old World birds of prey, the lammergeier is a link between ihe vultures and the falcons! It is about five feet long and four feet high when at rest, and has a wingspread of from nine to ten feet. Of its fierceness there has never been a doubt; it has been known to try to make men fall from great heights by buffeting them with its wings as they climbed the mountains. The one doubt as to its ability to carry off Jambs has arisen from the belief that the gripping power of its feet has been thought to he comparatively weak, but the fate of the Dordogne lamb settles that point. Another habit of the lammergeier links the bird with an event sadly famous in history. Its practice is to carry into the air and let tall on a rock below a bone or a tortoise which it desires to crack. It was one of these birds, tradition says, which mistook the bald head of the immortal Greek tragic poet, Aeschylus, for a white stone and let fall a tortoise, which killed him. In size the lammergeier is the superior of the golden eagle, but there is a doubt which is the stronger. The Scottish eagles have been seen to seize red deer calves and carry tliem away, generally down the face of the hill on which the animal has been browsing; and there is a record of one such victim which, having been rescued, was weighed and turned the scale at 191 b. One eagle’s nest was found to contain the remains of a deer call, which must have been carried soon alter a kill by the bird, for eagles, unlike the lammergeier, do not oat carrion. Duiing the present year a golden eagle was seen to seize a lamb in the Highland's almost under the nose of an observer. Before the bird could get up into the air the watcher attacked it and caused it to drop its prey, but the bird immediately snatched it up again, gripping it behind the ears. Again the onlooker dashed at it, and this time the great bird relinquished its victim and flew away.