Of other animals accustomed to follow caravans, the Doctor particularly mentions ravens and carrion birds, which in winter consume the excrement, in summer the carcasses, of horses. In Armenia and Persia, he recognised an old friend whom he had often seen hovering over the expeditionary column which he had accompanied to Constantina. The white-headed vulture (_Vultur fulvus_) floated in the air at a prodigious height above the caravan, and as often as a horse fell dead, dozens of the loathsome birds lowered their powerful pinions, and sank plumb-down upon the carrion. The beasts of the caravan, even the dogs, were pretty good friends with these obscene creatures; or at least, from the force of habit, usually endured their proximity. Dr Wagner speculates on the possibility of some eccentric sympathy between the horse and his future coffin. He often saw the little carrion kite (_Cathartes percnopterus_,) when it had gorged itself with the flesh of some dead animal, settle down, its feathers all puffed out, upon a horse’s back, there to digest its copious meal—a process which the horse, by his immobility, seemed studiously to avoid disturbing. Grouped together in the great heat, from which they sought to shelter their heads under their neighbours’ bellies, the horses stood, each one with his plumed and impure rider. “Sometimes,” says the Doctor, “I saw ravens sitting in the same confidential manner upon the backs of horses and dromedaries. In North Africa I observed similar intimacy between kites and cows, ravens and swine. Dr Knoblecher relates that in the Nile districts of Central Africa he often saw waterfowl, particularly herons and ibises, sit upon the backs of elephants. Only to one kind of animal has the Armenian caravan-horse a natural hatred and strong aversion—namely, to the camel, who, on his side, detests the horse. Even in caravans composed of both kinds of beasts, long accustomed to each other’s presence, this antipathy endures. Horses and camels, if left in any degree to their own free will, go separately to pasture. Long habit of being together restrains them from hostile outbreaks, but I never witnessed, during the whole period of my Oriental travels, an example of even a tolerably good understanding between them.”