988 Birds. 



and the Pyrenees. I believe, however, that north of Gibraltar it is 

 only a summer visitant. Like its congeners, it feeds on the bodies of 

 dead animals, and, in extreme hunger, on garbage and filth thrown 

 into the streets. Its eggs are of a dirty white colour, marked with a 

 few pale red blotches. 



The head and upper parts of the neck are covered with a short 

 white down ; the lower part of the neck is surrounded with long slen- 

 der white feathers, which appear to stand out almost perpendicularly 

 from the skin and form a kind of ruff; on the breast is a considerable 

 space bare of feathers and covered with short down, generally 

 whitish, but often approaching to brown ; the primary feathers of 

 the wing, and also the feathers of the tail, are dark brown, nearly 

 black, but, with these exceptions, all the feathers of the back, breast 

 and wings are brown, shaded at the edges and tips to fulvous grey. 

 The beak is very strong, hooked, and of a bluish lead colour ; the 

 cere dark, and all the region surrounding the eyes approaches to 

 black ; the eyes are hazel, and the feet brown. The length from the 

 tip of the beak to the extremity of the tail is full four feet, and the 

 expansion of the wings not less than eight feet. 



The young birds differ in colour considerably from the adult : the 

 plumage being spotted and the down of the head and neck con- 

 spicuously marked with brown. Temminck thinks that in this state 

 it is the c Vultur Kolbii ' of Latham and the ' Vautour chasse-Jlente ' 

 of Vaillant. 



The genus Vultur has been the subject of much sub-division. 

 Mr. G. R. Gray, in his e Genera of Birds,' make them into four sub- 

 families — Gypaetinae, Cathartinae, Vulturinae, and Racaminae. In 

 the same author's ' List of the Specimens of Birds in the British 

 Museum,' three of these divisions are elevated to the rank of fami- 

 lies, under the names, Gypaetidae, Cathartidae and Vulturidae ; the 

 latter being again divided into the sub-families Vulturinae and 

 Gypohieracinae. The subj ect of this memoir is the Gyps fulvus of 

 both these lists, and the Gyps vulgaris of Savigny. It is well 

 figured in Gould's ' Birds of Europe,' but that author has added no- 

 thing to its history. 



Edward Newman. 

 9, Devonshire-street, Bishopsgate, 

 13th May, 1845. 



