208 BIRDS OF BRITISH GUIANA. 



o£ the gun had also roused all the other Vultures (C.f(jctens and 

 C. aura), which were now in company with the King Vultures 

 over the place where the carcase lay, but the feast was too 

 inviting for them to leave the spot, and after soaring about for 

 some time at an immense height^ they began, singly or in small 

 parties, to descend by closing their wings and droj)ping with 

 astounding pace like a stone through the air towards one of the 

 trees, nearing which they spread out their strong wings and 

 alighted with ease. 



Mr. Barrington Brown (Canoe and Camp Life, p. 177) writes : — 

 " King Vultures. — It is a well-known fact tliat where the carcase 

 of a Comudi snake is, there will two King Vultures be gathered 

 together." 



Mr. Beebe (Our Search for a Wilderness, p. 137) observes: — 

 *' Our stereos showed a King Vulture circling slowly around, 

 craning his wattled head down at us as he drifted past. We had 

 never expected to see this bird near the coast, and indeed we saw 

 no others during our entire stay in Guiana." 



Genus CORAGYPS Bonap. 

 Cora</i/ps Bonaparte, Kev. Zool. 185-1, p. 530. Type C.foetens (Wied). 



In this monotypic genus the bill is rather long and depressed 

 at the base, the nostils are linear in shape and placed at the basal 

 portion of the bill. The head and neck are naked and black with 

 numerous corrugations or skin-folds, which are transverse on the 

 nape and longitudinal on the throat. The tail is square. 



Brabourne and Chubb, torn, cit., used Catharista for fastens 

 Wied, but that name is an undoubted S3'nonym of Cathartes 

 llliger, consequently we are using Coragijps. 



131. Coragyps foetens. 

 Black Vulture. 



Cdfharisia foetens Wied, Beitr. Naturg. Bras. iii. p. 58, 1830 (Brazil) ; 

 Brabourne & Chubb, B. S. Amer. i. p. 62, no. 507, 1912. 



Cathartes fcetens Cab. in Schomb. Reis. Guian. iii. p. 742, 1848; Brown, 

 Canoe and Camp Life, p. 102, 187G. 



Catliaristes atratus Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. i. p. 21, 1871. 



Cathartes atratus Salvin, Ibis, 1880, p. 78 ; Qxieleh, Timehri (2) v. 

 p. 103, 1891 (Georgetown) ; Lloyd Price, tom. cit. p. 05 (nesting- 

 habits). 



