NEOPHRON PERCNOPTERUS. 



The changes of plumage to which it is subject in its advance from the 

 young to the adult state, have given rise to the creation of several sup- 

 posed distinct species, as the extensive list of synonyms quoted evidently 

 shows. We entertain, however, some doubts as to its identity with the 

 Angola vulture of Pennant ( Vultur Angolensis of Lath. Ind. Orn.), inas- 

 much as he has figured and described it with the tail even, and not of the 

 cuneiform shape which distinguishes Neophron Percnopterus. In other 

 respects it appears to possess all the characters of the genus, and will, if 

 really distinct, form a second species, differing from the type in a modi- 

 fication of the form of the tail. It is also possible that some of the others 

 enumerated as varieties, or considered the same bird at different periods 

 of age, may, upon farther and closer investigation, prove to be distinct spe- 

 cies ; at present they are considered by several eminent ornithologists as 

 all belonging to the same. In Egypt this vulture is very abundant, and 

 Bruce has given a description of it in his Travels under the title of the 

 Rachamah or Poule de Faraone. This appears to have been taken from 

 a bird not perfectly matured (or it must constitute another species), as no 

 mention is made of the long slender feathers of the occiput, which, ac- 

 cording to Temminck, distinguish the adult, and are also characteristic of 

 the Vultur Ginginianus of Latham, which we consider referable to the 

 species now under consideration. It is nearly allied in affinity with those 

 species of the American Vulturidce which form the genus Cathartes, as re- 

 stricted by Vigors and other naturalists of the present day, and consti- 

 tute their analogue in the ancient world. Its habits and mode of life 

 are also found to be very similar *. It delights in the most putrid carrion 

 and offal, rejecting no dead or decomposing animal matter, and is deser- 

 vedly respected by the inhabitants for its service in thus performing the 

 office of a scavenger, and clearing away all those immundities which, in 

 the warm climates it inhabits, would become pestilential, and infect the air 

 with putrid miasmata. It also occasionally preys upon lizards and other 

 reptiles, but rarely attacks the smaller animals or living birds. In the 

 contour of its form it is more graceful than the species of the genus Ca- 

 thartes, approaching in this respect also the genus Gypaetos, of which the 

 Vultur barbatus of authors is the type. It possesses great powers of flight, 

 the wings being very long, and the tail considerably produced, and it soars 



* Vide Observations on the Habits, &c. of the Turkey Buzzard and Carrion Crow (Cathar- 

 tes aura and uruba), by J. J. Audubon, in Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal for Oct. 1826. 



