426 AVES—VULTURE 
The black vulture is seldom found on the Atlantic, to the northward of 
Newbern, North Carolina ; but inhabits the whole continent to the south- 
ward as far as Cape Horn. 

THE LAMMERGEYER, OR BEARDED VULTURE] 

In its attitudes this bird resembles the eagles more than the vultures, its 
confident and sprightly bearing strongly contrasting with the crouching and 
suspicious postures of the latter. Like these, however, it generally retains 
its wings in a state of half expansion when at rest, and its neck more 01 
less retracted within its shoulders. Its food, as we shall presently see, is 
more frequently sought in a living prey than on a putrefying carcass; and 
for this reason it 1s not often found, like the vultures, assembling ine con- 
sidera>le troops. The increased curvature of its talons also contributes to 
the same object, by enabling it to carry off its prey, whether living or dead. 
A careful comparison of their characters, or. what is far better, of the animals 
themselves, as they exist side by side in tne menagerie, wil show how 
nearly this bird holds the middle station between the two large groups to 
which it is almost equally related. 
Several nominal species were created by the naturalists on the close of 
the last century, which appear now, by common consent, to have been 
merged into one, the bearded vulture of ornithologists, or lammergeyer of 
the Swiss and German Alps. Its range extends to most of the principal 
mountain chains of the Old Continent, as it is found, with more or less fre- 

1 Gypetus barbatus, Cuv. The genus Gypetus has a long bill; upper mandible arched 
towards the point, and bent like a hook; nostrils oval, covered with stiff hairs directed 
forward; feet short; four toes, the three anterior united by a short membrane, the middle 
one very long; nails slightly crooked ; wings long. 
