| 
48 BIRDS OF PREY. 
Besides, what we have already said concerning the stuffing 
and preparing of birds, there are many details connected with 
particular species which demand our attention, and which can 
~only be described as regarding that species. It will, however, 
be impossible for us to enter into all these minutely, but oniy 
give a few examples as general guides. We shall take these 
in systematic succession. 
ORDER 1.—RAPACES, OR BIRDS OF PREY. 
In the preservation of the feathers of Birds, little else is 
required to prevent the dissipation of their colours than to keep 
them as much as possible from air and light. These two agents, 
which were indispensable to their beauty and perfection in a 
living state, now exercise their influence as destroyers, and that | 
influence will sooner or later work its ends according to the | 
quality, texture, or colour of the object with which it is con- 
| tending. The feathers are now deprived of two agents, which 
_ in a living state contributed to their vigour and their beauty, 
|| namely, the internal circulating juices which they received 
from the body of the animal, and the external application of 
oil by the bill of the bird, supplied from a gland which is 
placed over the rump of all birds. ‘ 
The colours of the rapacious tribes are not so evanescent as 
those of many others, as they, for the most part, are composed 
of intense browns and blacks, which are not so easily absorbed 
by light or air, so that they continue for a very long period 
without any sensible difference. There are, however, certain 
other parts which are liable to almost immediate change of co- 
iour after the death of the animals, and these are the cere and 
skin of the legs and feet, and the naked skin on the heads 
and necks of Vultures and their congeners. We shall treat 
of these individually. 
OF VULTURES. 
The birds of the genera Vuitur and Carnartes of 
Temminck’s arrangement, are distinguished from their heads 
and generally the upper paris of their necks and a spot 
