from distances of ten or more miles, and they often are joined by
several other vultures, especially the percnopters, "their true
friends," D'Orbigny says. In another continent, in the
Transcaspian deserts, they have, according to Zarudnyi, the same
habit of nesting together. The sociable vulture, one of the
strongest vultures, has received its very name from its love of
society. They live in numerous bands, and decidedly enjoy
society; numbers of them join in their high flights for sport.
"They live in very good friendship," Le Vaillant says, "and in
the same cave I sometimes found as many as three nests close
together."(12) The Urubu vultures of Brazil are as, or perhaps
even more, sociable than rooks.(13) The little Egyptian vultures
live in close friendship. They play in bands in the air, they
come together to spend the night, and in the morning they all go
together to search for their food, and never does the slightest
quarrel arise among them; such is the testimony of Brehm, who had
plenty of opportunities of observing their life. The red-throated
falcon is also met with in numerous bands in the forests of
Brazil, and the kestrel (Tinnunculus cenchris), when it has left
Europe, and has reached in the winter the prairies and forests of
Asia, gathers in numerous societies. In the Steppes of South
Russia it is (or rather was) so sociable that Nordmann saw them
in numerous bands, with other falcons (Falco tinnunculus, F.
oesulon, and F. subbuteo), coming together every fine afternoon
about four o'clock, and enjoying their sports till late in the
night. They set off flying, all at once, in a quite straight
line, towards some determined point, and. having reached it,
immediately returned over the same line, to repeat the same
flight.(14)