inhabiting the South of Africa. 17 



Wherever travellers have penetrated, specimens of this 

 bird have been met with, and though nowhere congregated in 

 numbers, yet the individuals are so numerous, that there is 

 scarcely a farm-house in the colony, or a kraal, or a temporary 

 resting place for travellers beyond it, which are not once or 

 oftener in the course of the day visited by one or more of 

 them. In their flight they are constantly in search of carrion, 

 which forms their only food ; and it is with a view of pro- 

 curing such that they resort to the localities just mentioned. 

 They build their nests in crevices of rocks of difficult access, 

 and lay one or two eggs. 



2. NEOPHRON CARUNCULATUS. Smith* 



N. obscuro-fuscus ; caput et pars superior gutteris purpurea, 

 et nudata, ultimum carunculis parvis transversis albis octo 

 aut decem ; irides fuscce. 



Bill greenish black towards base, dark horn colored near 

 tip ; eyes dark brown ; front, crown, sides of head, and upper 

 part of throat bare, and of a purple color, with eight or ten 

 white transverse caruncles on the latter ; nape, upper part of 

 neck, and lower part of throat covered with a light reddish 

 brown down, and between that of the latter and the caruncles 

 already mentioned, a large oval patch of black down ; lower 

 part of cervix, interscapulars and back deep brown ; the 

 feathers all edged and tipt with a lighter tint ; shoulders 

 nearly the same ; primary quill feathers blackish, with a gray- 

 ish tinge towards quills ; secondaries blackish brown, with 

 the color of the tips and edges lighter than that of the cen- 

 tres ; thighs covered with a white down in addition to some 

 long brown feathers on the outer sides ; legs and toss pale 

 greenish blue ; claws black. Length two feet two inches ; 

 breadth from tip to tip of wing five feet six inches. Inhabits 

 the North-East frontier of the colony, and is not uncommon 

 towards the sources of the Orange River. 



Obs. This species in most of its characters resembles 

 the genuine Neophron, whilst, in the want of feathers on the 

 throat, it approaches the Vultures. The Vultur Occipitalis 

 of Ruppelf is described as having slight transverse caruncles 

 upon the upper part of the throat, but the form of its bill, 

 and its other characters, clearly bespeak its position to be 

 in another genus. 



(To be continued.) 



* South African Advertiser, May 13, 1829. 



f Atlas zu der Reise im Nordlichen Afrika von Eduard Rupell, erste, Abthei- 

 Jung Zoologie, page 33, taf. 22. 



