158 CLASS AVES. 



rated by naturalists. To do so would, in fact, be to dwell for 

 the most part on a series of names, which have been constantly 

 applied to the same species seen under different modifications. 

 M. Vieillot remarks, that, after having observed the living vul- 

 tures under the various metamorphoses Avhich the difference of 

 age occasions in their plumage, and having most attentively 

 studied the subject, he is fully convinced that few of their 

 genera are composed of as many species as some naturalists 

 have adopted without examination, and others have repeated 

 without reflection. In short, he considers few synonymies in 

 such a state of confusion as theirs^. 



Brisson, Gmelin, and Latham have described seven or eight 

 species of vultures in Europe, though it appears more than 

 probable that there are but three or four. As this is frequently 

 the case, though, in our additions to the text, as formerly in 

 our tabular synopsis, we insert all the enumerated species 

 without vouching for their authenticity ; we shall be careful, in 

 the supplement, to speak of none that are not pretty well verified, 

 and to give no particulars of any but such as are interesting 

 and important. 



Of all the characters drawn from the anterior portion of the 

 body in the vulture tribe, the most distinct is the greater or less 

 degree of nudity of the head and neck. To this may be added, 

 that they differ from the eagles with which they have been 

 vulgarly confounded, by having their eyes on a level with the 

 head, while the eyes of the others are sunk within their orbits. 



* A modern author has observed that it would be better not to quote 

 these synonymies, than to attempt the arrang'ement of such a chaos. This, 

 however, would be as short a way of getting through business, or rather 

 of evading labour, as if a judge, for sake of despatch, should never hear 

 but one side in any cause. A reform in the nomenclature of natural his- 

 tory is loudly called for ; and we conceive that a work designed for the 

 use of beginners in zoology should confine itself to two of the most 

 approved names of each species (a popular and a scientific one), and dispense 

 with the eternal business of repetition and reference. 



