786 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 
Vultures but enough so among themselves as to certainly warrant the 
family divisions into genera that we have followed in this paper. We 
further believe that the time is not far distant when the fact will be 
generally acknowledged, and Professor Huxley’s admirable arrange- 
ment is this regard followed, that the Old World Vultures are only en- 
titled to the rank of a sub-family under the Falconide. It is hard to 
perceive, even, how Mr. Sharpe can still adhere to his classification as 
given in the catalogue, where both New and Old World Vultures have 
been placed in the same family, Vulturide, and then divided into the two 
sub-families, 1. Vultwrinew (Old World Vultures), and Il. Sarcorhamphine 
(New World Vultures.) (Cat. Birds of Brit. Mus., Vol. I, 1874.) Let us 
take the very good example of Gyparchus papa from the second of these 
groups, and Neophron percnopterus from the first; snow-white skeletons 
of both of these birds, mounted upon their museum perches, are now 
standing before me, silent attestors, as far as their osteology goes, of 
the violence perpetrated by such an arrangement. 
In Gyparchus papa we have the pterapophysial processes of the basi- 
sphenoid, the peculiar arrangement of the lacrymals, and the absence of. 
the nasal septum, cranial distinctions of great importance and weight, 
while in Neophron a complete septum narum exists, and the ptera- 
pophysial processes are missing, characters it has in common with the 
Faleonide. 
Then, again, the differences in the scapular arch and sternum, the 
pheumacity of the skeleton on the part of the King Vulture, a condition 
not enjoyed to any such extent by Neophron, the arrangement of the 
sternal ribs, and, in short, down to the very toes, these two birds are 
stamped with characters that compel us to acknowledge that they belong 
to two very different families, and to such, along with others of their 
kind that possess similar and such undoubted differences in structure, 
they must eventually be assigned by universal consent. 
WASHINGTON, August 31, 1882. 
