The appearance of this bird is as horrid as can well be imagined. The face is naked and wrinkled ; the eyes are large and black ; the beak black and hooked; the talons large, and extended, ready for prey; and the whole body polluted with filth : these are qualities enough to make the beholder shudder with horror. Notwithstanding this, the inhabitants of Egypt cannot be thankful enough to Providence for this bird. All the places round Cairo are filled with the dead bodies of asses and camels, and thousands of these birds fly about and devour the car-cases before they putrefy, and fill the air with noxious exhalations. The inhabitants of Egypt say, (and after them Maillet, in his description of Egypt,) that they yearly follow the caravan to Mecca, and devour the filth of the slaughtered beasts, and the carcases of the camels which die on the journey. They do not fly high, nor are they afraid of men. If one of them is killed, all the rest surround it in the same manner as do the Royston crows ; they do not quit the places they frequent, though frightened by the explosion of a gun, but immediately return.