CALIFORNIAN VULTURE. 243 



extremely ungenerous, suffering no other animal to approach them 

 while feeding. After eating they become so sluggish and indolent as 

 to remain in the same place until urged by hunger to go in quest of 

 another repast. At such times they perch on decayed trees, with their 

 heads so much retracted as to be with difficulty observed through the 

 long, loose, lanceolate feathers of the collar. The wings at the same 

 time hang down over the feet. This position they invariably preserve 

 in dewy mornings or after rains. 



" Except after eating, or while protecting their nest, they are so ex- 

 cessively wary, that the hvmter can scarcely ever approach sufficiently 

 near even for buck-shot to take effect upon them, the fulness of the 

 plumage affording them a double chance of escaping uninjured. Their 

 ffight is slow, steady, and particularly graceful ; gliding along with 

 scarcely any apparent motion of the wings, the tips of which are curved 

 upwards in flying. Preceding hurricanes or thunder-storms, they are 

 seen most numerous and soar the highest. The quills are used by hun- 

 ters as tubes for tobacco pipes. 



" Specimens, male and female, of this truly interesting bird, which I 

 shot in Lat. 45° 30' 15", Long. 122° 3' 12", were lately presented by the 

 Council of the Horticultural Society to the Zoological Society, in whose 

 museum they are now carefully deposited." 



Californian Vulture, Vultur Californianus, Shaw, Nat. Misc. vol. ix. pi. 301 . 



— Shaw's General Zoology, vol. vii. p. 10. 

 Cathartes Californianus, IlUger. 

 Cathartes Califorkianus, Ck. Bonaparte, Synopsis of Birds of United States, 



p. 22. 

 Californian vulture, NuUall, Manual, voL i. p. 39. 



Adult. Plate CCCCXXVI. 



Bill nearly as long as the head, strong, straight at the base, slightly 

 compressed ; the upper mandible covered beyond the middle by the 

 cere, its dorsal outline declinate, convex above the nostrils, as far as the 

 edge of the cere, then decurved, the ridge broad and convex, the edges 

 with a slight undulation, toward the end sharp, the sides convex, the tip 

 large, ciu"ved, and pointed ; lower mandible with the angle long and ra- 

 ther narrow, the dorsal line beyond it convex, the back and sides broadly 

 convex, the edges decurved toward the tip, which is broadly rounded. 

 Nostrils sub-basal, oblong, rather small, occupying less than the pos- 



