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ossifrage |
3 definitions found From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Lammergeir \Lam"mer*geir\, Lammergeier \Lam"mer*gei`er\, n. [G. l["a]mmergeier; lamm, pl l["a]mmer, lamb + geier vulture.] (Zo["o]l.) A very large vulture ({Gypa["e]tus barbatus}), which inhabits the mountains of Southern Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa. When full-grown it is nine or ten feet in extent of wings. It is brownish black above, with the under parts and neck rusty yellow; the forehead and crown white; the sides of the head and beard black. It feeds partly on carrion and partly on small animals, which it kills. It has the habit of carrying tortoises and marrow bones to a great height, and dropping them on stones to obtain the contents, and is therefore called {bonebreaker} and {ossifrage}. It is supposed to be the {ossifrage} of the Bible. Called also {bearded vulture} and {bearded eagle}. [Written also {lammergeyer}.] From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Ossifrage \Os"si*frage\, n. [L. ossifraga, ossifragus, osprey, fr ossifragus bone breaking; os ossis, a bone + frangere fractum, to break. See {Osseous}, {Break}, and cf {Osprey}, {Ossifragous}.] (Zo["o]l.) a The lammergeir. b The young of the sea eagle or bald eagle. [Obs.] From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]: Ossifrage Heb. peres = to break" or "crush", the lammer-geier, or bearded vulture, the largest of the whole vulture tribe. It was an unclean bird (Lev. 11:13; Deut. 14:12). It is not a gregarious bird, and is found but rarely in Palestine. "When the other vultures have picked the flesh off any animal, he comes in at the end of the feast, and swallows the bones, or breaks them and swallows the pieces if he cannot otherwise extract the marrow. The bones he cracks [hence the appropriateness of the name ossifrage, i.e., "bone-breaker"] by letting them fall on a rock from a great height. He does not however, confine himself to these delicacies, but whenever he has an opportunity will devour lambs, kids, or hares. These he generally obtains by pushing them over cliffs, when he has watched his opportunity; and he has been known to attack men while climbing rocks, and dash them against the bottom. But tortoises and serpents are his ordinary food...No doubt it was a lammer-geier that mistook the bald head of the poet AEschylus for a stone, and dropped on it the tortoise which killed him" (Tristram's Nat. Hist.).
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