25 
A quite young bird has the top and back of the head, and 
upper part of the back of the neck, thickly covered with white 
down. The rest of the head and neck, asin the adult. The 
crop patch much lighter than in the adult, is covered with pale, 
dove-coloured, brown feathers. The rest of the lower surface 
is pale brown, becoming albescent towards the vent, each feather 
broadly centered, (most conspicuously so, on the sides and 
breast), with dingy white. The ruff, of long linear lanceo- 
late feathers, is a very pale fulvous white, faintly margined with 
brown. ‘The mantle, a somewhat pale hair brown, every 
feather, narrowly but conspicuously, centred with fulvous white. 
The quill feathers and tail feathers chocolate brown, darkest 
on the primaries and rectrices. The lower back, rump, and 
upper tail coverts, are nearly pure white, only a few of the 
longest of the latter, being tinged with brown. 
In an intermediate stage, the crop patch is intermediate in 
colour, between that of the adult and of the young, as is also 
the colour and character of the ruff, and indeed of the whole 
plumage. 
This bird differs at all ages from Bengalensis, not only in 
having 14 instead of 12 rectrices, and in the greater length and 
slenderness* of the bill, especially the ceral portion, but in many 
other points. In colour the adults of course differ as black 
from white, but even the youngest Bengalensis is every where 
of a darker and dingier hue, than the young even, of Indicus. 
Then the appearance of the plumage of the back differs in the 
two species. In Bengalensis the feathers are more broad 
and rounded, and have a more of a squamated appearance, 
whilst those of Indicus are more pointed and narrower. Again, 
the true Indicus differs from the young of Bengalensis in the 
pale rump, (that of the latter being dark although in the adult 
it is white,) in the comparative absence of pale centerings to 
the feathers of the under-parts, and in such pale centerings 
being in Indicus very broad and inconspicuous, while in Benga- 
lensis they are narrow, almost linear and very conspicuous. Further, 
there is a quantity of nearly pure white down on the nape 
* T contrast the dimensions of 3 average specimens, but in these birds, 
dimensions vary much in different individuals : 
Gyps G. Bengalen- G. Bengalen- 
Indicus. sts JY. sis adult, 
Bill, from gape, ts we «294 2°63 2°69 
Length of cere, Af Ge ee 73 ‘81 
Length, straight, from edge of cere to 
point, re 188 1:78 181 
Height, at margin of cere, me 88 QA, ‘97 
Length of gonys, 101 “94. ‘97 
