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Genus NEOPHRON. 



Vultur apud Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. i. p. 121 (1766). 



Neophron, Savigny, Syst. Ois. de l'Egypte, p. 8 (1810). 



Cathartes apud Temminck, Man. d'Orn. p. 5 (1815). 



Percnopterus apud Stephens in Shaw's Gen. Zool. xiii. pt. 2, p. 7 (1825). 



This genus contains, according to Mr. Sharpe, four species, which inhabit the Palsearctic, 

 Ethiopian, and Oriental Regions, only one species being found in the Western Pakearctie 

 Region. In habits they resemble the Griffon and Cinereous Vultures, and are essentially 

 carrion-eaters, devouring garbage of all sorts. They are gregarious, and nest also in colonies. 

 They fly with ease, quartering the ground most carefully in search of food, but are heavy and 

 inactive on the ground. They nest in cliffs, old buildings, and trees, building a heavy nest of 

 sticks, grass, &c, which they line with rags, grass, or any soft rubbish they can collect together ; 

 and they deposit one or two white or ochreous eggs richly blotched with dark red. 



Neophron percnopterus, the type of the genus, has the beak elongated, slender, encircled at 

 the base by a naked cere which extends fully to the middle of the bill ; ridge of the culmen 

 rising slightly from the cere and then decurved ; nostrils, which are in the anterior part of the 

 cere, elongated, horizontal ; under mandible shorter than the upper, and blunt ; fore part of the 

 head and throat bare of feathers ; feathers on the occiput and back of the neck elongated, 

 lanceolate; wings long, rather pointed, the first quill short, the third quill longest; tail moderate, 

 much rounded, composed of fourteen feathers ; feet rather short and stout, the tarsi reticulated ; 

 anterior toes united at the base ; claws moderate, slightly curved. 



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