VULTURIDAE 143 



horseman, while it will fly when hard pressed, or soar to a con- 

 siderable height. The huge nest, occupied from year to year, is 

 placed in a bush or tree, and is composed of sticks and clay with 

 a lining of wool and hair, the two or three eggs being white with 

 rusty markings. In six weeks the downy white young are hatched, 

 which remain some four months in the nest, often uttering a harsh 

 cry. The legs of both nestlings and adults are very fragile, and 

 snap if they trip while running. 



A fossil form (S. robustus) has been recorded from the Lower 

 Miocene of Allier in France. 



Fam. III. Vulturidae. — The Old-World Vultures have a strong 

 liooked bill — exceptionally slender in Neophron — which may be 

 sinuate, but has no tooth. They possess a horny cere ; a compara- 

 tively short, stout, reticulated metatarsus, often partly feathered ; 

 scutellated toes on a level, with bluntish slightly curved claws, and 

 a short membrane between the outer and mid digits. They lack 

 the bony ridge found over the eye in the Falconidae. The some- 

 what pointed wings are long and broad, -with eleven primaries 

 and from seventeen to twenty-fi\e secondaries ; the moderate tail, 

 ordinarily of twelve feathers, is rounded, but varies to wedge- 

 shaped in Neophron, where, as in Gyps, there are fourteen 

 rectrices. The plumage is compact ; the crop prominent ; the 

 head and neck are bare or sparsely-haired in Otogyps and Pseudo- 

 gyps, more or less downy in Vultur, Lophogyps, and Gyps, and 

 partly feathered in Neophron; while a ruff of down or plumes 

 covers the shoulders. The nostrils are circular in Vultur, 

 horizontally elongated in Neophron, oval and vertical else- 

 where ; the fleshy tongue may show bristly or upcurved 

 margins, and the syrinx has two pairs of tracheo-brofechial 

 muscles. Uniformly distributed down and an aftershaft charac- 

 terize the adults, while the v/hite woolly nestling of G^Jps is said 

 to be hatched naked.-' Except as regards Neophron, the habits 

 resemble those of the Cathartidae, the carrion diet producing a 

 most offensive odour. The plumage of the sexes is the same. 



Vultur monachus (cinereus), the Black Vulture, has its head- 

 quarters in the Mediterranean Kegion, whence it extends to the 

 Gold Coast, Nubia, the Lower Danube, North India and China, and 

 has strayed to Denmark. Not unlike the more sociable Griffon Vul- 

 ture in general habits, it shows a preference for wooded country, 



' Chapman and Buck, TFild Spain, 1893, p. 207. 



