VULTURES. 



123 



of Vultures, has not, moreover, failed to place it among' the species of 

 American urubu, and to conclude that the urubu equally inhabits Ame- 

 rica and Africa ; a conclusion the more hazardous, inasmuch as it has 

 not yet been shown in a single instance that any vulture is common to 

 the new and the old world. But Buffon was not contented to stop here ; 

 he must needs precisely indicate the passage between the Brazils and 

 Guinea by which the urubu traverses the sea, and repairs into Africa. 

 If this naturalist had given himself the trouble to compare the urubu of 

 America with the description of Kolben, he would have been easily 

 convinced that the stout and crooked bill of the stront-vogel was not at 

 all applicable to the urubu, which has, on the contrary, a bill so long- 

 and slender, that the Spanish and Portuguese colonists have given it 

 the name of gallinaco, gallinaca ; and the English, that of turkey-buz- 

 zard. The urubu has, in fact, a bill more resembling that of the tur- 

 key than the vulture. M. Dumarchais, who had remarked with great 

 care the particular form of the bill in this bird of prey, inconsiderately 

 concluded that it was a species of wild turkey, which was accustomed to 

 eat dead bodies and carrion. Look at the ourigourap (plate 14 of Le 

 Vaillant) ; it is also a vulture, and has a bill of nearly the shape of the 

 urubu s, but rather longer. 



ft is a fortunate circumstance that the designer, at least, saw the 

 urubu, when he made his figure of that bird ; for it is, possibly, repre- 

 sented in Buffon's coloured plates, No. 187, under the name of the Brazil 

 vulture. Is it not, however, astonishing that in Buffon's works all the 

 birds, or at least nearly all of them, have, in the coloured plates, names 

 different from those under which they are described ? Is not this strong 

 evidence of the way in which his work was executed ? It is clear, how- 

 ever, that Buffon never saw the urubu, and never glanced his eye over 

 the plate which represents it, or he would not have committed the error 

 which he has done. But unhappily it requires no great effort to be 

 convinced that all his relations have been written under the same dis- 

 advantages ; tha£ is, without his having seen or compared the species. 

 It is yet deserving of remark, that the Chasse-Fiente, of Africa, is more 

 than three times as powerful as the urubu, and but little smaller than the 

 oricou. During repose its wings almost reach to the tip of the tail. 

 This character alone would be sufficient to distinguish it from the oricou, 

 whose wings go several inches beyond the tail. It has not, besides, the 

 head and neck bare like the latter, but covered with a fine and cottony 

 down, like the percnoptera, the vulture figured in No. 425 of Buffon's 

 plates. 



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