On the groups of the Vulturidm. 369 



It is evident that it is among these last mentioned groups whose 

 limited size and powers admit of a greater multiplicity of form, 

 that the inquirer into natural affinities will find the most favourable 

 field for his researches. Here the series of affinity may justly be 

 supposed to run on without any interruption, and the innumerable 

 species to blend into each other without almost any perceptible 

 change of character. It is this circumstance perhaps which gives 

 to Entomology its peculiar interest, and confers upon the minute 

 and microscopick creatures, which form the subject of that science, 

 a value in the eye of the naturalist, which is denied to the more 

 bulky and apparently nobler animals. In these larger sized groups 

 the transition on the other hand from form to form is more abrupt, 

 the interchange of character is more irregularly marked, and al- 

 though the naturalist may trace out the general approximation by 

 which the series of affinity is still preserved inviolate among them, 

 his eye is not gratified by that immediate and perfect bond of con- 

 nection which it is enabled to detect in those smaller sized tribes, 

 where numbers and variety of form predominate. 



The family of Vultures comprises a group in which this law is 

 strongly exemplified. Exceeding all other birds in size, unless 

 perhaps we except some of the larger forms of the Strut hionidce, 

 and surpassing all without exception in strength and powers of 

 body, these ministers of rapine are necessarily restrained with- 

 in such limits with regard to their numbers, as prevent their be- 

 coming themselves an equal nuisance to the habitable world as 

 that from which it is their business to relieve it. The species and 

 the modifications of character among them are consequently few. 

 These modifications however are so strongly marked as to have 

 formed the foundation of a few well defined generick groups 

 which have been established by some of our most distinguished 

 modern naturalists. Of these groups it is my intention to exhibit 

 a general sketch in the present paper; while at the same time I 

 shall endeavour to point out the affinities by which they are con- 

 nected together in their own circle, and the typical characters by 

 a greater or less accordance with which they are respectively more 

 or less remotely separated from the neighbouring families. It is 

 a general outline only however that I shall attempt to give of these 



Vol. II. 2 a 



