4 VULTURIN^:. 



GENUS, Gyps, Sav. 



Tail with twelve or fourteen feathers ; bill more lengthened 

 than in Vultur ; culmec more gradually curving, much rounded 

 and compressed beyond the cere ; nostrils oblong, oblique, or 

 transverse ; head and neck clothed with soft down ; the bottom 

 of the neck with a ruff of lengthened feathers. 



Gyps fulvescens, Hume. 



3 bis. Butler, Guzerat ; Stray Feathers, Vol. Ill, p. 442 ; 

 Murray's Vertebrate Zoology of Sind, p. 63 ; Swinhoe and 

 Barnes, Central India ; Ibis, 1885, p. 53 ; Hume's Scrap Book, 

 p. 19. 



THE BAY VULTURE. 



Length, 41 to 47 ; expanse, 94 to 106 ; wing, 27 to 29'5 ; tail 

 (of 14 feathers), 12 to 13'5 ; tarsus, 3*88 to 4'2 ; bill from gape, 

 3 to 3'2 ; weight, 12 to 18 Ibs. 



The top of the head, cheeks, chin and throat are covered with 

 dingy yellowish-white hair-like feathers, so closely set upon 

 the top of the head, chin and throat, and with such an admixture 

 of brown that the dark skin, which in the hill bird(6r. himalayensis) 

 shows so plainly through the scant covering, is, in this species, 

 completely hidden. The nape and the whole of the neck (except 

 the back and side of the basal one-fifth or less, which are bare or 

 nearly bare), are closely covered with dense, short, fur-like white 

 or dingy yellowish-white down. The crop-patch is about the 

 same color as in the hill bird, but somewhat more rufous, and 

 the whole of the rest of the plumage is a far more rufous, and 

 deeper fawn or buffy-brown than in 0. himalayensis. The lower 

 plumage is in the adult of a rich rufous-brown, bay, or even dull- 

 chesnut, conspicuously white shafted, whilst the mantle is a 

 warm sandy-brown, unlike the coloring of any of our other Indian 

 Vultures. The feathers of the ruff are almost linear, (the web 

 not so much separated as in the hill bird; usually of a warm 

 wood-brown or rufous-fawn, the feathers conspicuously paler 

 centred. The upper back, the whole of the upper wing-coverts and 

 all but the longest scapulars are a warm wood-brown, or 

 brownish rufous-fawn, yellower and sandier, in some deeper and 

 more of a bay color in others. The secondaries, tertials and 

 longer scapulars, umber (but not dark-umber) brown ; the latter 

 (viz. the longer scapulars) more or less tipped with the rufous 

 or sandy color of the upper back, which color, in some specimens, 

 more or less extends to the tips and outer webs of the tertiaries. 

 Lower back, rump, and upper tail-coverts the same color as the 

 upper back, but of a considerably lighter tint, in some mingled 

 with brown, and in some altogether of a pale pure bay. The 

 primaries and tail-feathers are very dark brown ; in some not so 

 dark as the corresponding feathers in G. himalayensis, but in 

 others of an intense chocolate-brown. Lower parts a rich sandy 



