NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



PART II. 



A V E S. 



RAPTORES. 



V U LTU RI DM.— VUL TURES. 



[1.] 1. Sarcoramphus Californianus. (Vigors.) Calif omian Vulture. 



Genus. Sarcoramphus. Dumeril. 



Vultur Californianus. Shaw. Nat. Mia., ix., pi. 301. 



Californian Vulture. Lath. Syn. Suppl , ii., p. 3. 



Vultur Californianus. Idem. Ind. Suppl., p 2. 



Buzzard. Lewis & Clahk. Journ., fyc. iii., p. 48, No. 4. 



Cathartes Vulturinus. Temm. PI col. 31. 



Cathartes Californianus. Bonap. Syn., p. 22. 



Sarcoramphus Californianus. Vig. Zool. Journ., ii., p. 375. 



Vultur Californianus. Douglas. Zool. Journ., iv., January, 1829, p. 328. 



This great Vulture is an inhabitant of the shores of the Pacific, and was first 

 introduced to the notice of naturalists by Mr. Menzies, who brought a specimen 

 from California, and deposited it in the British Museum. It has not been dis- 

 covered to the eastward of the Rocky Mountains, and I can, consequently, make 

 no addition to its history from personal observation ; but Mr. David Douglas has 

 given an interesting account of the habits of the species in the Zoological Journal, 

 from which the following notices are extracted. He represents it as a common 

 bird in the woody districts of California, which he met with in the summer as 

 far north as the forty-ninth degree of latitude ; but nowhere so abundantly as 

 in the valley of the Columbia, between the Grand Rapids and the sea. " They 

 build," he says, " in the most secret and impenetrable parts of the pine forests, 

 invariably selecting the loftiest trees that overhang the precipices on the deepest 



