Also lammergeier. [a. G. lämmergeier, f. lämmer, pl. of lamm lamb + geier vulture, GEIR, hence lit. ‘lamb-vulture.’] The Bearded Vulture, Gypaetus barbatus; it is the largest European bird of prey, and inhabits lofty mountains in Southern Europe, Asia and Northern Africa.
1817. L. Simond, Switzerland (1822), I. 239. An inaccessible shelf of rock,… upon which a lammergeyer (the vulture of lambs) once alighted with an infant it had carried away.
18[?]. Mrs. Hemans, Cavern Three Tells, Poems (1875), 341. They start not at … the Lammer-geyer’s cry.
1867. A. L. Adams, Wand. Nat. India, 78. The Lammergeyer is easily distinguished from the other vultures by its pointed wings and wedge-shaped tail.
