THE BIRDS OF PREY OF THE PUNJAB. 249 



Two of the Vultures here included are doubtful inhabitants of the 

 Punjab, but as it is quite possible that stragglers occasionally do occur, 

 within the boundaries of the Province I shall give them a passing notice. 



All tne True Vultures are birds of large size with a head devoid of 

 feathers and covered only with down or entirely naked. 



The Cinereous Vulture is the only one which has fur-like feathers on the 

 head and sides, which, at a short distance, give the bird an appearance of a 

 feathered head, but on closer investigation it will be found that they are 

 not true feathers and, moreover, grow in patches and the whole head and 

 neck are by no means covered. Since all other Raptores have their head 

 and neck fully covered, any bird with head or neck bare, or even partially 

 covered, can be straightway classed as a Vulture or Scavenger Vulture and 

 searched for in Type B. 



From the keys given it will be found very simple to place any bird in its 

 proper Type and that done, in most cases, the species will not be found 

 to be any more difficult, with a very few exceptions. As I have already 

 said the Osprey and the Lammergeyer are absolutely unmistakable, so for 

 an example let us take some bird in Type B. We know it belongs to Type 

 B because it has a head and neck either covered with down, bare, or 

 covered with fur-like feathers in patches, thus always leaving some part of 

 the head or neck bereft of feathers. We look at the key to the species 

 under Type B and find there are 9 to choose from in 5 genera. Nostril 

 round and head and neck covered with blackish fur-like feathers, and 

 tarsi covered with dense silky down on their upper portion ; tail of 12 

 feathers, and the bird must be Vultur monachus. If it has wattles depending 

 from either side of the neck, it must be Otogyps calvus. 



A tail of 14 feathers and it can be consigned to the genus Gy2)e, which 

 also has a narrow vertical slit for a nostril. Two species of this genus are 

 very large birds, and if the wing measures over 27" you know it must be 

 either Gyps fulvus or G. hhnalayensis. If so, the 3rd primary being the 

 longer and narrow shaft stripes on lower plumage will point to it being 

 "fulvus" and the 4th primary longest and the shaft stripes broad, will 

 determine your bird as G. himalayensis . If the wing is under 26" the 

 specimen will belong to one of the other two species, and to find out 

 which, see whether it has any hairs on the crown of the head or whether 

 it is absolutely naked. A vertical narrow slit for a nostril, but a tail of 

 12 feathers points to the Genus Pseudogyps and the species P. bengalensis. 



The Scavenger Vultures are infinitely smaller being 9" or 10" less in 

 length than the smallest of true Vultures. 



The difficulty in identifying one from the other of these two species, in 

 certain phases of plumage must always be considerable, as the colour of the 

 beak and the extra one inch or so in length is no criterion, when dealing 

 with immature birds. It is a doubtful point whether each deserves 

 specific rank, they are so closely allied to each other. N. percnopterus is 

 our Punjab bird, and though N. ginginianus might easily be found in the 

 southern portion of the Province, adjoining Delhi, above that it will usually 

 be the former that is met with. 



Key to the Types. 



Chapter 1. 



Type. Size. Characteristics. 



A. Medium.' a. Head and neck feathered ; b. tarsi naked ; 



(The Osprey). c. outer toe fully reversible ; d. no aftershaft to 



contour feathers; e. tip of primaries in closed 

 wing reaching to end of tail or exceeding it. 



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