2028 THE DIURNAL BIRDS OF PREY 



stretched out 'straight in front, and its legs extended backward below the tail. When 

 pursued, these birds generally keep to the ground, and if hunted from horseback 

 they give a good chase, which does not end till they fall from pure exhaustion. 



THE AMERICAN VULTURES 

 Family C 



That birds so closely resembling in general appearance the true vultures as do 

 the vultures of the New World should be far less closely related to them than are 

 the falcons or even the secretary vulture may seem extraordinary, but it is neverthe- 

 less a fact; and the external resemblance between the members of the two groups 

 must accordingly be attributed to the effects of that parallelism in development to 

 which we have before alluded. So different, indeed, are these birds from other Ac- 

 cipitrines, that it is probable the three preceding families should be brigaded in one 

 great group equal in rank to a second including only the present family. Some 

 ornithologists go even further than this, and refuse to admit the American vultures 

 within the limits of the Accipitrine order; but the correctness of this view we are 

 not yet prepared to admit. Agreeing in general appearance and their bare heads 

 and necks with the vultures of the Old World, the American vultures can be distin- 

 guished at a glance by the absence of any partition between the two nostrils, so that 

 (as seen in our figure of the turkey vulture on p. 2036) there is a hole right through 

 the upper part of the beak. They also differ from the Falconida and Vulturidtz by 

 the absence of aftershafts to the feathers, in which respect, as also in the presence 

 of basipterygoid processes on the rostrum of the skull and in the naked oil gland, 

 they resemble the owls. A remarkable peculiarity of the group is the absence of a 

 syrinx, or voice organ, in the lo.wer part of the windpipe, in consequence of which 

 the only sound that these birds can utter is a kind of hiss. In their length of limb 

 these vultures agree with the Old-World group, but the first toe is more elevated. 

 There are, altogether, about nine species of these birds, of which the majority are at 

 least partly South American, although the range of the family extends about as far 

 north as the northern boundary of the United States. 



Largest of all the birds of prey, the condor of the Andes (Sarcor- 

 hampus gryphus} is the type of a genus characterized by the head of 

 the male being furnished with a large, erect, fleshy wattle, which forms a median 

 crest immediately behind the beak, and also by the rounded wings, in which the 

 primary and secondary quills are of nearly equal length, exceeding twice the length 

 of the tail. The first toe is very short; while the 'second and fourth toes are of nearly 

 equal length. The female lacks the head wattle of the male; but in both sexes the 

 beak is characterized by its comparative shortness and depth. In the male condor 

 the general color of the plumage may be described as glossy black with gray on the 

 wings; most of the wing coverts, as well as all the secondaries and the inner pri- 

 maries, having their external margins ashy white. The large downy ruff round the 

 neck is pure white, and the bare parts of the head, neck, and chest have a wrinkled 



