Young scavenger vultures are sooty brown when they leave the nest and look like a different species.
This creature feeds on human ordure and haunts the neighbourhood of latrines. It is known to Thomas Atkins as the Shawk. It is also called Pharaoh's Chicken. (Illus. B. D., pp. 278 and 280.)
In the Punjab it is replaced by a species which resembles it in all characters, differing only in being a little larger. This species is:
145. _Neophron percnopterus_: The Egyptian Vulture, or Large White Scavenger Vulture. (F. 1198), (J. 6), (+V.)
This large family is composed of birds which bear so strong a family likeness that it is almost impossible to describe them in such a way as to enable the reader to identify them at sight. As with the owls, birds of prey are easily recognised as such, but to name any particular species baffles even professed ornithologists. To try to make out the raptores by their colour is, to use the words of Eha, "at the best a short road to despair. Naturalists learn to recognise them as David's watchman recognised the courier who brought tidings of the victory over Absalom. 'His running is like the running of Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok.' Every bird of prey has its own character, some trick of flight, something in its figure and proportions which serves to distinguish it decisively." What precisely this something is I am not in most cases able to state. I trust that before long Mr. C. H. Donald, or some other Indian falconer, will give us a little handbook on the birds of prey of this country. For my part I am able merely to attempt a description of two or three of the very commonest forms.
146. _Aquila vindhiana_: The Indian Tawny Eagle. (F. 1203), (J. 29), (+V.)
In colouring this bird is very like the common kite, but has not so long a tail; and its legs are feathered right down to the toe--this is the sign-manual of all the true eagles. A bird that looks like a kite with feathered legs is probably a tawny eagle--the commonest eagle in India, abundant everywhere save on the Malabar coast.
147. _Butastur teesa_: The White-eyed Buzzard. (F. 1220), (J. 48), (IV.)
This bird of prey is about the size of the common house crow. Eha writes, "A Buzzard's idea of life is to sit upon a pole, or on top of a small tree commanding a good expanse of grass land, and to watch for a field mouse, or a lizard, or even a fat grasshopper. If you see a biggish, untidy hawk, of a sandy brown colour, more or less dashed with whitish, spending the morning in this way, you may put it down as _Butastur teesa_." The sign-manual of this common bird is its white eye, and if you cannot get near enough to make this out with the aid of field glasses, you may still identify this species by the conspicuous white patch on the nape of the neck.