112 THE BIRDS OF CALCUTTA. 



In Vultures we have in the East not only the rajah and 

 the common ruck of his subjects of various species, but 

 the humble sweeper, in the form of the well-known White 

 Scavenger Vulture (Neophron ginginianus). This bird, 

 however, eschewed the neighbourhood of Calcutta, for 

 although appallingly accommodating of stomach, he has 

 some delicacy of constitution about him, and avoids a 

 moist climate. 



It is a curious thing that the same hierarchy of Vultures 

 obtains in America, although the birds there belong to a 

 distinct family of their own ; the old-world vultures being- 

 very near of kin to the eagles. In South America we get 

 a handsome and powerful King Vulture (Cathartes papa), 

 but creamy-fawn is here the royal colour ; and he has for 

 subjects the mean Turkey-Buzzards (Oenops aura), in 

 their rusty black, and the Gallinazos or Black Vultures 

 (Catkaristes atiatus), which look uncommonly like our 

 scavenger, only dipped in ink, the colours of sovereign and 

 sweeper being practically reversed. It is a curious fact 

 that the Old and New World Vultures, like the monkeys 

 of the two worlds, can most readily be separated by the 

 form of the nostrils ; the difference in the case of the birds 

 being that in the Eastern Vultures thei'e is a partition 

 between the nostrils as in most animals, whereas in the 

 Western family this is absent, and you can look right 

 through the beak from one side to the other. The Ameri- 

 can Vultures also have weaker feet and do not build nests ; 

 and they have no voice-muscles, so that they can only 

 hiss. Their Eastern relatives, though not taloned like 

 eagles, are more powerful in the extremities, and even 



