VERTEBRATA: AVES. 633 



principally upon carrion, and are filthy and cowardly birds. 

 The wings, however, are long and strong, and they possess 

 great powers of flight. This group comprises the Californian 

 Vulture (Cathartes Californianus) of Western North America, 

 the King Vulture (Sarcoramphus papa) of tropical America, 

 and the famous and gigantic Condor (Sarcoramphus gryphus) 

 of South America. 



Lastly, the family of the Gypogeranidce, includes only the 

 single genus Gypogeranns or Serpentarius, including only the 

 curious " Secretary Bird " of Africa. In this singular bird, the 

 legs are long and slender, with an unfeathered tarso-metatarsus, 

 thus resembling a typical Wader ; whilst the wings are long and 

 armed with blunt spurs. The Secretary-bird lives principally 

 upon Snakes and other reptiles, which it kills by blows from 

 its feet and wings. 



As regards their distribution in time, the Raptores seem to 

 make their first appearance in the Eocene Tertiary, where both 

 sections of the order are represented, the Diurnal forms by the 

 Lithornis vullurinus of the London Clay, and the Nocturnal by 

 the Bubo leptosteus of the Eocene of Wyoming. Amongst the 

 later representatives of the group may be mentioned the Har- 

 pagornis of the Post-Tertiary of New Zealand, a colossal Bird 

 of prey, which was a contemporary of the Moas. 



CHAPTER LXVIL 



SAURORNITHES AND ODONTORNITHES. 

 SUB-CLASS III. SAURORNITHES. 



ORDER I. SAURUR^E. This order includes only the extinct 

 bird, the Archceopteryx macrura (fig. 351), a single specimen 

 of which and that but a fragmentary one has been dis- 

 covered in the Lithographic Slates of Solenhofen (Upper 

 Oolites). This extraordinary bird appears to have been about 

 as big as a Rook ; but it differs from all known birds in having 

 two free claws belonging to the wing, and in having a long 

 lizard-like tail, longer than the body, and composed of separate 

 vertibrcz. The tail was destitute of any ploughshare-bone, and 

 each vertebra carried a single pair of quills. The metacarpal 

 lones, also, were not anchylosed together as they are in all other 



