Vl'l.TURUXE. 



VULTURID^E. 



1110 



covered with a small brown down, and round it U a longer white 

 down. 



Th youog with the head and neck more or leu clothed with short 

 down. (Temm.) 



U U a native of Bengal (probably spread over the continent of 

 India), Java, and Sumatra. 



I'ondichrrry Vulture ( t'ullur I'mticcriauut). 



V. Indirus, the Indian Vulture, has the head and neck denuded of 

 feathers; all the upper plumage Isabella-ash colour varied with brown 



and whitish ; lower part* spotless very bright yellow ; a slight short 

 deep brown down, clone-set and very smooth, covers the breast ; bill 

 black, but the point lighter; naked skin of the bead rusty ash. It is 

 about the size of a turkey. Total length 3 feet 3 inches. 



It is found in India and Ceylon. 



It is very voracious. It lingers all day near the sea-shore to prey 

 on the dead fish thrown up by the waves. The species lives generally 

 on carrion, and is said to disinter corpses. The Bight of these vultures 

 is heavy, and, like their congeners, they sometimes assemble in vast 

 numbers on the battle-field. 



1". Kolbii, Kolbe's Vulture. This is the Stront-Jager of Kolbe, and 

 the Chasee-Fiente of Temiuinck. The head is covered with downy 

 ferruginous feathers, which are whitish on the back of the neck ; a 

 ruff of loose ferruginous or dirty white feathers round the back of the 

 neck ; cere blackish ; iris black ; back and wings ferruginous or firay- 

 brown ; quills black ; belly rather lighter ferruginous; feet brown ii-h ; 

 claws black. Size less than that of the Griffon Vulture, but in general 

 aspect and plumae very like that species. It is however easily distin- 

 guished. In Kolbe's Vulture the feathers of the wings and of the 

 lower parts are al! rounded at the end. In the Griffon Vulture they 

 are long and acuminated. In Kolbe's Vulture the ruff is neither so 

 long nor so abundant as in the Griffon, and the adult is nearly entirely 

 of a whitish-Isabella colour. The adult Griffon is uniform bright 

 brown throughout 



It is found in Barbary, and different parts of Africa, India, and 

 Java. 



Indian Vulture ( t'ullur Indian}. 



Kolbe's Vulture (t'ullur 



1'. nuricularit, the Sociable Vulture. This is the Oricou of Lo 

 Vaillant and the French; and Ghaip, with the preceding chipping 

 sound, of the Nnmaqua Hottentots. It has the head and greater 

 portion of the neck red and naked, with the exception of a few hardly 

 discernible hairs ; beak horn-coloured, tinged with yellow at its base ; 

 iris chestnut. The folds of red naked skin originate behind the ears, 

 surround the upper part of them, and then descend several inches, 

 being irregular in their outline and nearly an inch broad at their 

 widest part. Throat covered with hairs inclining to black. 



This gigantic specie*, a fit machine for arointing in the clearance of 

 the soil of Africa from the putrid bodies of elephant', hippopotami, 

 rhinoceroses, and giraffes, haunts the caverns of rocks, and is altogether 

 a mountain bird. There its night is passed, and there among the lofty 

 crags it retires to repose when it has sated its appetite. Le Vaillant 

 saw large flocks of them perched at sun-rise on the precipitous 

 entrances to their abodes, and sometimes the extent of the rocky 

 region was marked by a continued chain of these bird* Their tails 

 are worn down by friction against their craggy haunts and by the soil 



