VULTURES. 171 



two other portions of the class. In the forms of their 

 bills they have some approximation both to certain 

 species of the gallinaceous birds, and to certain tribes 

 of that division of Cuvier's great order, Passeres, 

 which, for want of a better name, we shall call om- 

 nivorous ; and it is not a little remarkable that, like 

 the gallinaceous birds, they have naked skin upon 

 the head and neck, and that skin blooms in the season 

 as in these. 



The nocturnal birds of prey have the bill more 

 slender than the day-feeders, generally much hooked 

 from the base, compressed, sharp at the tips of both 

 mandibles, smooth in the outlines of the tomia, and 

 without tooth or notch. It takes up the connexion 

 with the bills of the diurnal feeders rather from one 

 of the characters of that of the kites, than from those 

 of the vultures, which, in their general structure, may 



