488 niuDs OF Illinois. 



SuBORDEit SARCORHAMPHI.— The American Viltires. 

 Family CATHARTID^.— The American Vultures. 



iCathartidce Obay. 1842. - Hnxi^ET. P. Z. S. 1867. p. 463. Catliarlina Lafb. 1839. Sar- 

 corhampliidit Gray, 1848. Oru/ihina; Ueich. 1850.) 



The Suborder Sarcorhamphi (brietly characterized on page 45) is 

 exactly equivalent to the Family Cathart'ulif, the essential charac- 

 ters of which are as follows : 



Chak. Wliolo hend.and sometimes the noek. naked; eyes prominent, and not shaded 

 by a supori'iliary shield. Cere much elongated, mueh depressed anteriorly lielow thy 

 very arehod eiilmen: nostrils loiiRitudinal. horizontal, the two eonflucnt or perforate. 

 Jtfiddle toe very long, and the hind one mueh abbreviated. A web botwoon the base of 

 the inner and middle toes. 



The so-called family Vidtur'uUc,' as long recognized, included all 

 the naked-headed carrion-feeding Raptores of both the Old World 

 and the New. The later researches of science, however, have shown 

 the necessity of separating the Vultures of the latter continent from 

 those of the former, and ranking them as a distinct family, while 

 at the same time the Old World Vultures are found to be merely 

 modified Fdlcnn'uhc, the resemblance between the C(itli(irti<l</' and 

 the vulturine Falcon'uUe being merely a superficial one of analogy, 

 and not one of affinity. Scavengers of the countries they respec- 

 tively inhabit, they perform the same office in nature ; therefore, 

 for adaptation to a similar mode of hfe their external characters 

 are correspondingly modified. 



The Cathart'uhc differ from the Vultnrince^ as to their external 

 stnicture in the following particulars, the osteological structure 

 being entirely different in the two groups ; the latter resembling the 

 Falcon'uUe in all the characters which separate the latter family 

 from the dtthurtidie. 



• Established by Vigors in 1825. 



t From the VtillurhKr are excluded tho genera Gypatosiiad Neophron, eaeh of Avhich 

 probably constitutes a subfamily by itself. 



