14 
It does seem at first sight absurd to assert, that after all these 
years, during which ornithology has been studied in India, a 
species of such a genus should have escaped notice, but both 
Mr. Blyth and Dr. Jerdon give us only 3 species, while clear- 
ly, and unmistakeably there are 4. Our four vultures of the ~ 
genus Gyps are these :— 
1st—-The large Pale Himalayan Bird, which is usually 
identified with /ulvus, but from which, it seems to me that, 
(if there be any faith in figures and descriptions) it materially 
differs. This, however, will be settled when the specimens I am 
sending home have been compared with Huropean examples. For 
the moment I provisionally designate it as G. HimaALayvensis.* 
2nd.—The large fulvous vulture of the plains which, though 
smaller, approaches V. Monachus or G. Himalayensis in size, and 
which I need scarcely therefore say, is not the true G. Indicus of 
Scop. and Lath. (V. Tenuiceps et Tenuirostris, Hodgson.) This is 
the bird which possibly Dr. Jerdon has measured as “ Gyps 
fndicus, the long-billed brown Vulture,” the measurements 
given by him for that bird, being much too large. The true 
G. Indicus, is a bird but little exceeding G. Bengalensis in size, 
though differing from it widely in structure. The large fulvous 
Vulture of the plains, (which I have shot all over the N. W. 
Provinces, Punjab and Rajpootana) is, as already remarked, 
decidedly a somewhat smaller bird than G. Himalayensis, and 
the plumage differs, toto ce/o, as I shall hereafter notice. 
The bill of the plains bird is decidedly shorter and stouter 
than that of its Himalayan congener. As regards the claws, when 
I had only a few specimens of each before me, I thought that 
those of the plains bird were decidedly less curved ; but in these, 
as well as other species, the comparison of large series, shows 
that the variation, in the comparative thickness, bluntness, sharp- 
ness and curvature of the claws, in different examples of the 
same species, is too great to render any useful generalization in 
regard to them possible. 
This plains bird more resembles the descriptions of the true 
Fulvus, than does Himalayensis, especially in the much greater 
quantity of down on the head, face and neck, but it almost en- 
tirely wants the white down ruff running round the back of the 
neck, the lanceolate fulvous feathers springing almost directly 
out of the bare back of the neck. ‘his, however, may have 
little significance, because, figures are generally taken from in- 
dividuals in confinement; and birds of this family, well fed in 
confinement, on good food, notoriously throw out finer ruffs, and 
* Colonel Tytler tells me that he has written and talked of this as 
* Simlaensis.” 
