BIRDS OF PREY. 8l 



the tail projects in a straight line ; the forehead and the back of the head and nape are covered with 

 a short woolly growth of feathers ; the bare portions of the face and throat are also larger than in 

 the Scavenger Vulture ; the apertures of the ears are well developed, indeed almost muscular, and 

 the fore part of the throat is covered with wart-like excrescences. The plumage is of an uniform 

 chocolate brown, while the soft feathers at the back of the head are grey. The beak is greyish 

 blue, darkest at its tip ; the foot pale grey, the cere light violet, the bare head and throat are 



THE SCAVENGER, OR EGYPTIAN VULTURE {Pcraioptcrus skrcorarlus or Neophron Percnopterw). 



blueish red. The young are recognisable by the comparative paleness of their tints, and the 

 dark brown colour of the back of the neck, the smooth skin upon the throat, and their less con- 

 spicuous ears. The length of this species is twenty-six, its breadth sixty-six inches; the wing 

 measures seventeen inches, and the tail nine and a half. 



The Monk "Vulture is met with throughout almost the whole of the African continent, but 

 is especially numerous upon the banks of the Blue and White Nile and on the shores of the Red 

 Sea. So common is it in Abyssinia and Massowah, that large parties are often seen perching about 

 the roofs and trees, as the crows do with us, or picking up their food around the houses with the 

 utmost confidence and fearlessness. Before the natives have left their huts in the morning, these 

 VOL. ii. — 50 



