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Re: vultures & predation

On 12 Apr 98 11:39:00 EDT, you wrote:


>  Re: the species that drops turtles from heights to shatter their
>shells. i
>recall from a family 19th century natural history tome (the book long
>since
>having vanished) that a classical philosopher was killed by a falling
>turtle
>so dropped. 


The bird in question is the Lammegier or Egyptian Vulture (Gypaetus
Barbatus), and the Greek intellectual done in by being beaned with a
tortoise was Sophocles (as reported by Pliny).