INTRODUCTION 



Many ornithotomists contend that the Striges properly belong in 

 the group to be dealt with in the present treatise. My staunch 

 friend, the late Prof. W. K. Parker F. R. S. thought so, and 

 there are undoubtedly others who hold the same opinion. 

 Huxley made his division of the Aetomorphae equivalent to the 

 " Raptores " of Cuvier, and considered that they constituted four 

 natural groups — the Strigidae, the Cathartidae, the Gypaetidae, 

 and the Gypogeranidae [Zool. Soc. Lond. Proc. 1867, p. 462], but 

 since the appearance of his famous contribution to the subject, the 

 belief has been growing more general that the Striges have no place 

 there, that the Old World vultures hardly more than constitute " a 

 subfamily " apart from the Falconidae, and that, finally, the 

 Cathartidae or our New World vultures are also a family of the 

 Accipitres proper, and not very nearly connected with the Vulturidae 

 of the Old World. 



With respect to the Cathartidae, Dr Elliott Coues has said that 

 " In a certain sense, they represent the gallinaceous type of struc- 

 ture ; our species of Cathartes, for instance, bears a curious super- 

 ficial resemblance to a turkey" [Key. rev. ed. p. 557]. In such 

 classification I can in no way agree ; it is nearly as bad as that of 

 Garrod who placed these New World vultures among the storks 

 and herons [Coll. Sci. Mem. p. 215]. The more likely relation- 

 ships are well expressed by Newton who has remarked in his article 

 Ornithology [Encylo. Brit. ed. 9, 18:47], tftat "whatever be 

 the alliances of the genealogy of the Accipitres, the diurnal birds of 

 prey, their main body must stand alone, hardly divisible into more 

 than two principal groups — (1) containing the Cathartidae or the 

 vultures of the New World, and (2) all the rest, though no doubt 

 the latter may be easily subdivided into at least two families, .Vul- 

 turidae and Falconidae, and the last into many smaller sections, as 

 has commonly been done ; but then we have the outliers left. The 

 African Serpentaridae, though represented only by a single species, 

 are fully allowed to form a type equivalent to the true Accipitres com- 

 posing the main body ; but whether to the Secretary-bird should be 

 added the often-named Cariama, with its two species, must still re- 

 main an open question." 



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