90 Mr. J. H. Gurney^s Notes on 



The claim of Gyps fulvescevis to specific distinction is one 

 which it may perhaps be wise to keep in abeyance till a larger 

 number of specimens have been compared with western 

 examples of the like age and sex than has been the case at 

 present ; but Mr. Hume, at p. 149 of vol. i. of ' Stray Fea- 

 thers/ certainly adduces some strong evidence of its distinct- 

 ness, viz. that " the young, when only just able to fly, is paler 

 and less rufous a great deal than the adult, and that the 

 oldest birds appear to be the most rufous,"^ and also that out 

 of "thousands ^^ of these A^ultures observed by him in the 

 neighbourhood of Ajmere, " never once did he see one of the 

 pale bu'ds,^^ from which he infers that the adults are always 

 rufescent. 



In Mr. Sharpens article, under the head of Gyps meppelli, 

 no description is given of this species in immature plumage ; 

 and it may therefore be not improper to mention that the 

 young plumage of this Vulture, as well as its subsequent 

 phases of coloration, are well described in Baron de Miiller^s 

 ' Description des Nouveaux Oiseaux d'Afrique,^ published at 

 Stuttgart in 1853. To the particulars there given I would 

 only add that there is a considerable individual variation be- 

 tween adult (or nearly adult) specimens of this Vulture, as 

 to the conspicuousness, or the reverse, of the pale margins of 

 the feathers on the greater part of the plumage ; this difference 

 may not improbably be due to the greater or less period which 

 has elapsed since the last moult. 



Mr, Sharpe gives the colour of the bill in a nearly adult 

 specimen of C. rueppelli as "deep orange, inclining to greenish 

 horn-colour on the edge of the upper, and on the whole of 

 the lower mandible. ^^ I do not recollect to have seen an ex- 

 ample of this species with the bill so coloured ; the adults 

 that I have seen have agreed in this respect with Dr. Vier- 

 thaler's statement, quoted by Baron de Miiller in the article 

 above referred to, that the colour of the beak is " de corne 

 claire.^' 



In younger birds the bill is much darker, and sometimes 

 black, as recorded by Mr. Ayrcs in 'The Ibis' for 1860, 

 p. 206. 



