MIMOGYPES 



which only explains that they are inhabitants of America 

 and that they are vultures. A deft name introduced 

 by the late Mr. Seebohm, viz. Mimogypes, emphasizes 

 the now widely received view, that these birds are not 

 near allies of the vultures proper, i.e. those of the 

 Old World, but that they are vulturine in habit though 

 belonging to quite a different group of birds. No one 

 looking at the great condor of the Andes would come 

 to any other conclusion than that it is a vulture ; and 

 yet even externally, it may be distinguished from its 

 carrion-loving allies of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The 

 feet in the first place are decidedly feebler than those of 

 vultures, strictly speaking. The bill is less developed, 

 and it would be noticed after a short time that the condor 

 has no scream, or indeed voice of any kind, to raise the 

 echoes such as is possessed by the birds of prey of this 

 side of the Atlantic Ocean. It can, in fact, only hiss. 

 The reason for this is quite the same kind of reason as 

 that which forbids to the true storks the capacity for 

 uttering their sentiments. The bird has not a " syrinx, " 

 as the avian voice organ is termed. The windpipe or 

 trachea passes without change of character into the 

 two tubes, the bronchi, which supply with air the two 

 lungs. No modification of the cartilaginous rings at the 

 bifurcation, no muscles for altering the approximation 

 of these rings, are there to aid in the production of a 

 definite voice, even if only one capable of expressing 

 itself in a scream, which is the hawk-like mode of ex- 

 pression. The condor, too, and its immediate allies, 

 do not possess what so many birds do possess, i.e. two 

 blind tubes, the caeca, arising from the intestine. In 

 the hawks, eagles and vultures of the Old World these 

 caeca are always present, though very tiny ; in Sar- 

 corhamphus even the very vestiges have gone. There 

 is no trace of the blind appendages. Other anatomical 

 features which differentiate these birds need not be gone 



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