6 RAPTORES. NEOPHRON. Nkophiion. 



Africa, however, is the country most congenial to its economy, 

 in which quarter of the globe it is both abundant and widely 

 diffused. In its affinities it is nearly allied to those American 

 Vultures which form the genus Cathartes, as now restricted 

 by ornithologists ; and may in fact be considered as their re- 

 presentative upon the ancient continent. It also in some 

 particulars connects the more typical Vultures with the 

 genus Gypaetos^ leading immediately to the Falconidte, and 

 represented by that powerful and daring species Vultur bar- 

 batus, the Bearded Vulture of authors, and in another 

 work* it has been observed that its bill in form approaches 

 very closely to that of Tachypetes, one of those oceanic Pe- 

 lecanidae, which seem to connect the Natatores with the 

 terrestrial order Raptures. Its habits are very similar to 

 those of the American Catharti, so graphically described by 

 Audubon and other transatlantic writers, as it rejects no 

 dead animal matter, delighting even in the most putrid car- 

 Food, rion. On this account it is held in deserved respect, and 

 protected by the inhabitants of those countries in which it 

 abounds, as an able coadjutor in clearing away the filth and 

 putrid matter, which, in climates of so warm a temperature, 

 would otherwise become pestilential, by infecting the air 

 with unwholesome effluvia. In addition to the above men- 

 tioned food, it occasionally preys upon lizards and other rep- 

 tiles, but is rarely known to attack the smaller living animals 

 or birds. It possesses a great power of flight, from the wings 

 being very long and ample, and the tail produced and wedge- 

 shaped, circumstances that enable it to soar in extended 

 circles with great buoyancy, and it is in these aerial flights, 

 that it searches for its food upon the ground beneath, which 

 this and the other Vulturidse are now supposed to detect 

 more by strength and quickness of sight, than (as was for- 

 merlv supposed) by the extraordinary perfection of their 



* See Illustrations of Ornithology, \\\ Sir William Jardine and P. J. 

 Selbv, vol. 1st, plate S3, article Neophron Percnopterus. 



