BEARDED VULTURE. 13 



varies, being sometimes nearly white beneath, or 

 of a pale chesnut-colour. The head and neck are 

 not bare, but covered with narrow or slender 

 plumes of a whitish colour 5 and beneath the base 

 of the lower mandible is situated a large, length- 

 ened and pointed tuft of black hairs or very 

 slender setaceous plumes, from which circum- 

 stance the name of Bearded Vulture is particularly 

 applied to the present species. 



Since the time of Gesner this Vulture seems to 

 have been but indistinctly known to naturalists till 

 the publication of the third volume of Edwards's 

 ornithological work, in which it is admirably 

 figured, and described in the plain and simple 

 style of that honest observer, whose accuracy may 

 often be more safely depended upon than the more 

 ornamented narratives of superior writers. " This 

 bird (says Edwards) is of the bigness of an Eagle : 

 broad-ways it measures seven feet and a half, the 

 wings being extended; from bill-point to tail-end 

 it measures three feet four inches; from bill-point 

 to the end of the claws but two feet eight inches. 

 The wing when closed measures two feet four 

 inches; the prime quills are more than twenty- 

 three inches long. The bill is of a purple flesh- 

 colour, darker towards the point than at the base: 

 from its point to the angle of the mouth it measures 

 four inches: it extends itself in length a little be- 

 fore it bends into a hook, which is one of the 

 principal distinctions between the Eagle and the 

 Vulture kind; the Eagle's bill always begins to be 

 arched at its base, and continues so to its point. 



