[os-uh-frij] 
| 1. | the lammergeier. |
| 2. | Archaic. the osprey. |
| lam·mer·gei·er also lam·mer·gey·er (lām'ər-gī'ər) n. A large predatory bird (Gypaetus barbatus) of the vulture family, ranging from the mountainous regions of southern Europe to China and having a wide wingspan and black plumage. Also called bearded vulture, ossifrage. [German Lämmergeier : Lämmer, genitive pl. of Lamm, lamb (from Middle High German lamp, from Old High German lamb) + Geier, vulture (from Middle High German gīr, from Old High German).] |
| os·si·frage (ŏs'ə-frĭj, -frāj') n.
[Latin ossifraga, from ossifragus, bone-breaking : os, oss-, bone; see ost- in Indo-European roots + frangere, to break; see bhreg- in Indo-European roots.] |
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.).