488 BIRDS OF ILLINOIS. 



SUBORDER SARCORHAMPHI. THE AMERICAN VULTURES. 

 FAMILY CATHARTID-ffi. THE AMERICAN VULTURES. 



(Cathartidce GBAT, 1842. -HUXLEY, P. Z. S. 1867, p. 4C3. Cathartina LAFB. 1839. Sar- 

 corhamphidce GBAY, 1848. Gryphince REICH. 1850.) 



The Suborder Sarcorhamphi (briefly characterized on page 45) is 

 exactly equivalent to the Family Cathartidce, the essential charac- 

 ters of which are as follows : 



CHAB. Whole head, and sometimes the neck, naked; eyes prominent, and not shaded 

 by a superciliary shield. Cere much elongated, much depressed anteriorly below the 

 very arched culmen; nostrils longitudinal, horizontal, the two confluent or perforate. 

 Middle toe very long, and the hind one much abbreviated. A web between the base of 

 the inner and middle toes. 



The so-called family Vulturidce* as long recognized, included all 

 the naked-headed carrion-feeding Raptores of both the Old World 

 and the New. The later researches of science, however, have shown 

 the necessity of separating the Vultures of the latter continent from 

 those of the former, and ranking them as a distinct family, while 

 at the same time the Old World Vultures are found to be merely 

 modified Falconida, the resemblance between the Cathartida and 

 the vulturine Falconida being merely a superficial one of analogy, 

 and not one of affinity. Scavengers of the countries they respec- 

 tively inhabit, they perform the same office in nature ; therefore, 

 for adaptation to a similar mode of life their external characters 

 are correspondingly modified. 



The Cathartidce differ from the Vulturinfe] as to their external 

 structure in the following particulars, the osteological structure 

 being entirely different in the two groups ; the latter resembling the 

 Falconidte in all the characters which separate the latter family 

 from the Cathartidce. 



* Established by Vigors in 1825. 



t From the Vulturina are excluded the genera Gypcetos and Neophron, each of which 

 probably constitutes a subfamily by itself. 



