6802 Birds. 



piercing eyes, and a beautiful black, white and tawny plumage. It is 

 particularly remarkable for a certain scarlet- coloured, fleshy sub- 

 stance, which surrounds its neck like a collar, and comes over its 

 head in the form of a little crown. 



" I had this description of the bird from a person of knowledge and 

 veracity, who assures me that he has seen three different individuals 

 of this species, and particularly that one which was sent from Mexico 

 in 1750, to the Catholic king, Ferdinand the Sixth. He further 

 informs me that there was a genuine drawing of this bird published in 

 a work called the * American Gazetteer.' The Mexican name Cozca- 

 quahtl, which means ' king eagle,' is certainly more applicable to this 

 bird than to the other. The figure in our Plate (p. 74) is copied from 

 that of the * American Gazetteer." (See Clavijero's ' History of 

 Mexico,' 1790, Cullen's translation, Philadelphia, 1804, vol. i. p. 65, 

 and notes). 



On showing the engraving in Clavijero's volume to my Sonoranian 

 friend, he readily recognized it as the king of the zopilotes, which he 

 well knew ; but it was not the Quilele condor, or vulture of Sonora. 



The King of the Vultures, or King of the Condors of the Pampas 

 ( V. Papa of Linn e us). " This bird is larger than a male turkey ; the 

 skin of the head rises from the base of the bill, and is of an orange 

 colour, from whence it stretches on each side of its head, from thence 

 it proceeds like an indented comb, and falls on either side according 

 to the motion of the head ; the eyes are surrounded by a red skin of 

 a scarlet colour, and the iris has the colour and lustre of pearl. The 

 head and neck are without feathers ; they are covered with a flesh- 

 coloured skin on the upper part, a fine scarlet behind the head, 

 and a duskier-coloured skin before ; further down, behind the head, 

 rises a little tuft of black down, from whence issues, and extends 

 beneath the throat on each side, a wrinkled skin of a brownish colour 

 mixed with blue, and reddish behind ; below, upon the naked part of 

 the neck, is a collar, formed of soft, longish feathers, of a deep ash 

 colour, which surround the neck and cover the breast before. Into 

 this collar the bird sometimes withdraws its whole neck, and some- 

 times a part of its head ; so that it looks as if it had withdrawn the 

 neck from the body. These features of beauty suffice to distinguish 

 this bird from others of the vulture tribe. With all its beauty, its 

 food is the same as the others, — offal, rats, lizards and serpents, — 

 and the flesh is entirely uneatable." (See Oliver Goldsmith's 'Animated 

 Nature,' vol. ii. p. 44, and fig. 1 of Plate 16, Whitlaw's Glasgow edi- 

 tion, 1840). 



