322 BIRDS OCCURRING IN INDIA NOT DESCRIBED 



elongated, and of a slightly lighter hue than the back, and 

 form a conspicuous ruff. Feathers of the upper breast length- 

 ened, acutely pointed, somewhat rigid, and often with the webs a 

 good deal separated. The tail-feathers are remarkably stiff, 

 with the tips much abraded and naked, tipped with extremely 

 stiff, hard projecting shafts, reminding one much of the tail- 

 feathers of many Woodpeckers. 



The lower tail-coverts are of a slightly lighter hue than any 

 other part except the occiput. — Hume, " Rough Notes" 



3 bis. — Gyps fulvescens, Hume, " Hough Notes," 

 p. 19, February 1869. 



Length, 41 to 47 inches ; expanse, 94 to 106 inches ; wing, 

 27 to 29"5 ; tail of 14 feathers, 12 to 13 f 5 inches ; tarsus, 

 3-88 to 4-2 ; bill from gape, 3 to 3-2 ; weight, 12 to 18 lbs. 



The top of the head, cheeks, chin and throat are covered 

 with dingy yellowish white hair-like feathers, so closely set 

 upon the top of the head, chin and throat, and with such an 

 admixture of down that the dark skin, which in the hill bird 

 ( G. himalayensis) shows so plainly through the scant covering, 

 is, in this species, completely hidden. The nape and the whole 

 of the neck, (except the back and side of the basal one-fifth or 

 less, which are bare or nearly bare,) are closely covered with 

 dense, short, fur-like white or dingy yellowish white down. 

 The crop patch is about the same colour as in the hill 

 bird, but somewhat more rufous, and the whole of the rest 

 of the plumage is a far more rufous, and deeper fawn or 

 buffy brown than in G. himalayensis. The lower plumage is in 

 the adult of a rich rufous brown, bay, or even dull chestnut, 

 conspicuously white shafted, whilst the mantle is a warm sandy 

 brown, unlike the colouring of any of our other Indian 

 Vultures. The feathers of the ruff are almost linear, (the web 

 not so much separated as in the hill bird,) usually of a warm 

 wood brown or rufous fawn, the feathers conspicuously paler 

 centred. In one specimen an old female, shot by Mr. Marshall 

 on a nest from which he took the egg, the ruff feathers differ 

 in being of a uniform dingy white, faintly tinged with rufous. 

 The upper back, the whole of the upper wing-coverts, and all 

 but the longest scapulars are a warm wood brown, or brownish 

 rufous fawn, yellower and sandier in some, deeper and more of 

 a bay colour in others. The secondaries, tertials and longer 

 scapulars umber (but not dark umber) brown; the latter, 



