Ossifrage

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  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}.] (Zool.)
     (a) The lammergeir.
     (b) The young of the sea eagle or bald eagle. [Obs.]


         [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Lammergeir \Lam"mer*geir\ (l[a^]m"m[~e]r*g[imac]r), Lammergeier
  \Lam"mer*gei`er\, lammergeyer \lam"mer*gey`er\
     (l[a^]m"m[~e]r*g[imac]`[~e]r), n. [G. l[aum]mmergeier; lamm,
     pl. l[aum]mmer, lamb + geier vulture.] (Zool.)
     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}.
     [1913 Webster]

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.).