AVES—VULTURE. A19 
any zoologist; for all the accounts of it with which we have met, are copied 
from Le Vaillant. 
In size, this gigantic bird is fully equal to the condor; the larger specimen 
measuring, according to Le Vaillant, upwards of ten feet in the expanse 
of their wings. The head, and greater part of the neck are of the color 
of raw flesh, and exhibit in their adult state no appearance of down 9r 
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feathers, but only a few scarcely perceptible, scattered hairs. The throat is 
covered with blackish hairs, and the lower part of the neck behind, with a 
kind of ruff of crisped and curled feathers of the same color; within which, 
the bird withdraws its head while in a state of repose, especially after feed- 
ing ; an attitude which is common to most of the vultures. 
As Le Vaillant is the only writer who has observed these birds in their 
native state, our account of their manners must necessarily be derived from 
his work, which contains more detailed and authentic information relative 
to the habits of birds, than any other publication with which we are 
acquainted, excepting only Wilson’s admirable Ornithology. We shall, 
therefore, make no apology for abstracting his history of the present species, 
with which he has combined many particulars equally applicable to the 
whole family. Like all the other vultures, he says, this is a bird of the 
mountains, the sheltered retreats formed by their caves and fissures con- 
atituting its proper habitation. In them it passes the right. and reposes, 
