tCONDOR. 323 



a Cathartes. The remaining characters being more of a relative than 

 a positive kind, we shall not here notice them, except remarking that 

 the hind toe being much shorter and set on higher up in the American 

 genus, shows a greater affinity with the Gallinaceous birds, an affinity 

 which may be traced in other features of their organization. The num- 

 ber of tail-feathers is fourteen in several species of Vultures, whilst no 

 Cathartes has ever been found to have more than twelve. The principal 

 traits, both moral and physical, are the same in all the birds composing 

 this highly natural family. 



All in fact are distinguished by having their head, which is small, 

 and their neck, more or less naked, these parts being deprived of 

 feathers, and merely furnished with a light down, or a few scattered hairs. 

 Their eyes are prominent, being set even with the head, and not deep 

 sunk in the socket, as in Eagles and other rapacious birds. They have 

 the power of drawing down their head into a sort of collar formed by 

 longer feathers at the base of the neck : sometimes they withdraw the 

 whole neck and part of the head into this collar, so that thfe bird looks 

 as if it had drawn its whole neck down into the body. They have a crop 

 covered with setaceous feathers, or sometimes woolly or entirely naked, 

 and prominent, especially after indulging their voracious appetite. 

 Their feet are never feathered like those of an Eagle, although they 

 have been unnaturally so represented in the plates of some authors. 

 The tarsus is shorter than the middle toe, which is connected at its base 

 by a membrane with the outer one. The claws are hardly retractile, 

 comparatively short, and from these birds' habit of keeping much on the 

 ground, instead of always perching, as the Falconidoe, they are neither 

 sharp pointed nor much curved. Their wings are long and subacumi- 

 nate, the third .and fourth primaries being longest : they are lined 

 beneath with a thick down of a peculiar and very soft nature. 



The young birds have their head entirely covered with down, which 

 gradually falls off as they advance in age. The female is larger than 

 the male: their plumage varies greatly with age, and they moult but 

 once a year. The young are easily distinguished by their downy head 

 and neck, these parts in the adult being naked, and by the absence of 

 the caruncles which in some species are found on the adult. These 

 fleshy appendages are of the same nature as the wattles, &c., of Galli- 

 niiceous birds. 



No part of Ornithology has been more confused in its details than 

 that relative to the Vultures, and their synonymy, especially the Euro- 

 pean species, is almost inextricable : the old authors have heedlessly 

 multiplied and even composed species, whilst the modern have brought 

 together the most confused citations under those which at last they 

 founded on the actual observation of nature. We congratulate our- 



