ANIMAL FIGURES IN THE MAYA CODICES 329 



noose tied to a bent sapling and properly baited. In con- 

 nection with PL 16, fig. 1, it may be suggested that possibly 

 this represents a cage rather than a trap, in which the bird is 

 confined. The Lacandones at the present time often keep 

 their totem animals in captivity (Tozzer, 1907, p. 40). 



King Vulture {Sarcorhamphus papa). Numerous fig- 

 ures of vultures appear in the codices and elsewhere. In- 

 deed, they are among the most common of the birds depicted. 

 Two species only seem to occur in the writings, the king 

 vulture and the black vulture. The former is a large black 

 and white bird with the head and the upper part of the neck 

 unfeathered, except for numerous short, almost bristle-like 

 plumules. These naked portions are often colored red and 

 there is a large more or less squarish fleshy knob at the base 

 of the upper ramus of the beak. This conspicuous pro- 

 tuberance has been seized upon as a characteristic in the 

 conventionalized figures, and serves to identify the king from 

 the black vulture. In addition, a series of concentric circles 

 about the eye seems to be a rather constant mark of the 

 king vulture, though they are also sometimes found in con- 

 nection with figures which, from the absence of the rostral 

 knob, must represent black vultures (PI. 18, figs. 18, 27; 

 PI. 19, figs. 7, 10, 11). In the case of the bird shown in PI. 19, 

 fig. 1, the knob is hardly apparent, and the same is true of 

 PI. 19, fig. 13. Both these may represent king vultures. 

 A remarkable figure is that shown in PL 17, fig. 4, in which 

 an ocellated turkey and a king vulture confront each other with 

 necks intertwined. The short hair-like black feathers of 

 the head are represented in this as well as in PL 17, fig. 11, 

 and in the glyph carved in stone (PL 17, fig. 10), which from 

 the presence of the knob is probably a king vulture. The 

 characteristic knob is shown in a variety of ways. Thus, 

 in PL 17, fig. 1, it is greatly developed and resembles a large 

 horn wuth a falcate tip. In PL 17, fig. 4, it is sharply angular 

 and nearly square. Frequently, it is a circle with a centered 

 ring surmounted by one or two additional rings or terminated 

 by a mitre-shaped structure (PL 17, figs. 2, 5-7, 8-12). A 



