You can always tell a bird of prey by two points in its structure. The first we find in its beak, which is always very large and strong, and very sharply hooked. And the second we find in its talons, which are specially made for seizing and killing the animals upon which it feeds. Some persons think that an eagle or a hawk kills its victims with its beak, but that is a great mistake, for the beak is only used for tearing the flesh from off its bones after it is dead. The real weapons are the talons, which are so sharp and so strong that they can be pressed deeply into the vitals of a captured animal and kill it at once. All the birds of prey, therefore, have very powerful legs and large feet and claws. VULTURES--SYMBOLS OF RAPACITY First among the birds of prey come the vultures. Yet very often, strange to say, they never kill any prey at all, and the best naturalists suspect that they should be placed in a class by themselves. They much prefer to feed on carrion, so that if they can find the dead body of an animal they will never take the trouble to seek and kill victims for themselves. When an animal dies in a country in which vultures live, several of these birds are sure to find its carcass almost immediately. And in a very short time nothing will be left of it but just the bare skeleton. So, you see, these birds are really very useful. They belong to the great army of nature's dustmen, just like the jackals and the hyenas. For by destroying these carcasses before they can putrefy, they help to keep the air pure. In the cities of the Southern United States and of the tropics our small American vulture, the turkey-buzzard, is really depended upon as a scavenger. How vultures find the dead body of an animal is just a little doubtful. Some naturalists have thought that they find it by means of sight, and others that they do so by means of smell. It seems almost certain, however, that when they are hovering high in the air they are really watching one another; so that when one of them sees a carcass and swoops down upon it, all the other vultures within sight notice what he is doing, and come hurrying up for a share in the banquet. This explains how it is that if an animal is killed when not a vulture is to be seen, quite a number of these great, strong, ravenous birds will make their appearance in a very short time. THE LAMMERGEIER This is the finest of all the vultures. It is found in Southern Europe, in Northern Africa, and in Western Asia, and is sometimes as much as four feet in length from the tip of the beak to the end of the tail, while its wings may measure more than ten feet across when fully spread. It is one of the very few vultures which have the head and neck clothed with feathers. Besides this, a curious tuft of bristle-like hairs covers the nostrils, while a similar tuft grows just under the base of the bill. For this reason the bird is sometimes known as the bearded vulture.