_Vultur monachus_ (_cinereus_), the Black Vulture, has its headquarters in the Mediterranean Region, whence it extends to the Gold Coast, Nubia, the Lower Danube, North India and China, and has strayed to Denmark. Not unlike the more sociable Griffon Vulture in general habits, it shows a preference for wooded country, {144}constructing a bulky shallow nest of sticks, grass, and wool almost invariably on trees, and laying one, or rarely two, white eggs blotched with dark red. The plumage is brownish-black, with a ruff of lanceolate feathers below the bare neck, and black down on the crown and throat. The naked skin and cere are of a livid flesh-colour, the feet yellowish; the bill is black, the iris brown. _Lophogyps occipitalis_, of East and South Africa and Senegal, is dark brown with blacker remiges and rectrices, and some white on the wings; the reddish head and neck are bare, except for white down on the crown, which thickens towards the occiput; the ruff is brown, the abdomen and crop are white, the feet pinkish; the bill is orange with bluish cere, the iris brown. _Otogyps auricularis_, of North-East and South Africa, called the "Eared Vulture" from the fleshy lappets (of the same pinkish colour as the naked head, cere, and feet) on the sides of the neck, is brown, with blackish wings and tail, varied by white down on the thighs and chest; a brown ruff covers the hind-neck, while the bill and irides are yellow. _O. calvus_, the smaller Pondicherry- or King-Vulture of India, Burma, and Siam, is black. These birds usually hunt in pairs, driving all intruders except Eagles from their prey: they construct immense stick nests, often used in successive years, on thick bushes or trees; straw, leaves, and the like being added for lining, and one white egg, often with red-brown markings, deposited. _Gyps fulvus_, the Griffon Vulture, which has occurred in Germany, Poland, and once in Britain, breeds from the Spanish Pyrenees through Southern Europe and Northern Africa, reaching lat. 50° N. in Russia, and extending eastward to North India, by way of Turkestan, where it overlaps the larger form _G. himalayensis_. It is fawn-brown above and streaky buff below, with nearly black wings and tail, the adults having a downy white ruff, represented in the young by a brown collar; the head is thinly covered with white hairs, the beak is horn-coloured with blue-black cere, the feet are plumbeous, the irides orange. This active though cowardly species is often seen basking on rocks at mid-day; it flies or hovers with easy movements, and can soar until it almost disappears in the sky. It has a growling note. The nest, a mass of sticks and grass of variable size, is placed on cliffs, and contains one or even two white eggs, sometimes with rusty markings. Incubation lasts forty days, the young remaining three months in the nest. _G. kolbi_ of South Africa is much paler; _G. rüppelli_, of the north-east