PERES (OM, in our versions ossifrage,' Lev.
xi. 13 ; Deut. xiv. 12). Although Neser is un questionably the Hebrew name of the eagle, a genus so conspicuous, and to this moment so com mon in Palestine, probably possessed more than one designation in the national dialects of the country. Peres, though by some translators re ferred to a hawk, which they denominate Accipiter, has generally been identified with the ossifrage or great sea-eagle. The name ossifrage is applied to this bird from some idea of its breaking the bones of its prey ; but as it subsists mostly on fish, or on carrion, and only by chance on birds, whose bones in all genera are very hard, destitute of marrow, and likewise without nutritious matter, the name is not appropriate in its use. Besides, breaking the bones must be effected by the beak, which is strong indeed, but only formed to strike, tear, or hold, not to masticate ; and if the bones are broken for that purpose, where are they to be found ? in the crop, the succentorial ventricle, or in the giz zard ?—organs in birds of prey far from vigorous, or so well defined as they are in other orders of the class, particularly in Gallinacex. In fact, there is in nature no such bird as one that breaks the bones of warm-blooded animals in order to swallow them ; consequently, no identification can be made with any of the sea-eagles. But when we place together Peres, a name derived from a root denoting `to crush' or ' break,' and find that by the Greek name (1517vn (Phenc), the Hellenic nations called the Lbmmer Geyer of the Swiss, which Savigny (Oiseaux d'Egypte et de Syrie) has proved to be the ossifrage of the Romans ; then it becomes an immediate question, why such a de nomination should have been bestowed. The answer is, we think, satisfactory ; for, constituting the largest flying bird of the old continent, and being a tenant of the highest ranges of mountains in Europe, western Asia, and Africa, though some times feeding on carrion, and not appearing to take up prey like eagles in the talons, it pursues the chamois, young ibex, mountain deer, or marmot, among precipices, until it drives, or, by a rush of its wings, forces the game over the brink, to be dashed to pieces below, and thus deservedly ob tained the name of bone-breaker.
The species in Europe is little if at all inferior in size to the Condor of South America, measuring from the point of the bill to the end of the tail four feet two or three inches, and sometimes ten feet in the expanse of wing ; the head and neck are not, like those of vultures, naked, but covered with whitish narrow feathers ; and there is a beard of bristly hair under the lower mandible : the rest of the plumage is nearly black and brown, with some whitish streaks on the shoulders, and an abundance of pale rust colour on the back of the neck, the thighs, vent, and legs ; the toes are short and bluish, and the claws strong. In the young the head and neck are black, and the species or variety of Abyssinia appears to be rusty and yellowish on the neck and stomach. It is the griffon of Cuvier, Gypaitos barbatus of nomenclators, and -ypinfr of the Seventy. The Arabs, according to Bruce, use the names Abou-Duch'n and Nisser-Werk, which is a proof that they consider it a kind of eagle, and perhaps confound this species with the great sea eagle, which has likewise a few bristles under the throat ; and commentators, who have often repre sented Peres to be the black vulture, or a great vulture, were only viewing the Gypaitos as forming one of the order Accipitres, according to the Lin mean arrangement, where Vidtur iarbatus Nat.) is the last of that genus, although in the i3th (by Gmelin) we find the name changed to Falco and located immediately before F. Albicilla, or the sea-eagle, showing that until a still more accurate classification placed the species in a separate genus, ornithologists had no deter mined idea of the true place it should occupy, and consequently by what generical appellation it was to be distinguished.—C. H. S.