Passing on to the birds which frequent the Alps, we must first notice the bearded vulture, the lämmergeier of the Germans, which once was common, but now only holds its own here and there in some lonely mountain fastness. Although preferring living prey to carrion, still in many ways it is closely allied to the true vulture. The upper part of the body is a greyish-brown hue, the under side white, tinged with reddish brown. The nest, built on a high ledge of rock, consists of straw and fern, resting on sticks, on which are placed branches lined with moss and down. It is a rare thing for the traveller to obtain a view of this monarch of the Alpine birds. Like the true vulture, its digestive powers are marvellous. According to Tschudi ("Les Alpes"), the stomach of one of these birds was found to contain five fragments of a cow's rib, a mass of matted wool and hair, and the leg of a kid perfect from the knee downwards. Another had bolted a fox's rib fifteen inches long, as well as the brush, besides a number of bones and other indigestible parts of smaller animals, which were slowly being eaten away by the gastric juice. Sheep, goats, full-grown chamois, and smaller quadrupeds are eagerly devoured by this voracious bird. It is said to be bold enough to attack a man, when it finds him asleep or climbing in any dangerous place. Tschudi, in his book on the Alps, gives several instances of young children being carried off. One of these happened in the Bernese Oberland, as follows: Two peasants, making hay upon the pastures, had taken with them their daughter Anna, a child about three years old. She quickly fell asleep on the turf near the hay châlet; so the father put his broad-brimmed hat over her face, and went to work some little way off. On his return with a load of hay the child was gone; and a brief search showed that she was nowhere near. Just at this time a peasant walking along a rough path in the glen was startled by the cry of a child, and going towards the place whence it came, saw a lämmergeier rise from a neighbouring summit and hover for some time over a precipice. On climbing thither in all haste, he found the child lying on the very brink. She was but little injured; some scratches were found on her hands and on the left arm, by which she had been seized; and she had been carried more than three quarters of a mile through the air. She lived to a good old age, and was always called the Geier-Anna, or Vulture's Annie, in memory of her escape. The particulars are inscribed in the registers of the parish of Habkeren.