1903.] 



AND WIXDPIPE OF THE AMERICAN VULTURES. 



387 



(three or four in number). In the larger species, moreover, the 

 tongue is thick and boat- shaped, but not so markedly as in 

 Violtior. 



Text-%. 45. 



Left-hand figure : dorsal view of tongue of VaUur auricularis. 

 liight-hand figure: dorsal view of tongue of Qi/pagus papa. 



A, lateral spines ; B, posterior spines. 



I believe that these facts thi'ow some light upon the extra- 

 ordinary tongue of the American Vultures, which diiFers so much 

 from that of other Accipitres that Prof. Fiirbringer rightly uses 

 it * as one of the many characters distinguishing these birds from 

 the Old World Vultures. The general structure of the tongue in 

 the Oathartidse has been desciibed : for example by MacGillivray t 

 in Cathartes cdratas, and b}^ Gadow in Gypagus 'papa %. In these 

 birds and in the Condor the tongue is edged with a regular row 

 of backwardly directed papillse " like the teeth of a saw." An- 

 teriorly these spines are blunter and shoiier, and forcibly suggest 

 the lamellaj on a Duck's bill. In Gypagus there may be, in addi- 

 tion to the lateral spiny papillte, a few to the inside of each row ; 



* Uutersuch. z. Morph. u. Syst. d. Vogel, Amsterdam, 1888, p. 1304. 



t In Audubon, ' Ornith. Biographj-,' v. 1839, p. 347. 



X Bronn's Tliier- Reich, Vogel, pi. xxviii. fig. 4 ; this figure is referred in the 

 explanation of the plates to " Gyps sp." I gather from the text that Dr. Gadow's 

 description of the tongue was partly drawn from an unpublished memoir of 

 iJr. W. Marshall, and that the drawing belongs to that MS. I feel sure that there 

 is some mistake, and that the tongue figured is that of Gypagus or perhaps 

 Cathartes. 



