BIRDS OF PRF.Y. SECRETARY VULTURE. 285 
short legs, bristled gape, and long pointed wings ; while 
the singular tuft of stiff feathers surrounding the bill, 
makes it a perfect representation of Dasycephala, its 
corresponding type in the circle of the thrushes {Meru- 
lidce*). This vulture, in fact, is the most cruel and 
rapacious of all the European birds of prey ; and all our 
best ornithologists have placed it close to the eagles. 
(236.) The third and last type of this family appears 
to us to be the secretary vulture of Africa, forming the 
genus Gypoyeranus {fig. 93.). At least we cannot 
assign it to any other known division of the Raptores, 
without separating it much more widely from its con- 
geners than our present state of knowledge will sanc- 
tion. It has been thought, indeed, that this remark- 
able bird represented one of the primary divisions of 
the whole order ; in which case it would stand between 
the owls and the dodo : but its similarity to the vul- 
tures and the falcons, in our opinion, is too great to 
favour this supposition ; while, on the other hand, it 
will subsequently appear that the circle of the Faleonida' 
is sufficiently complete to show that it does not enter 
into that family. We have no other alternative, then, 
but to place it as the most aberrant — in other words, as 
the grallatorial type of the vultures ; a station to which 
* See the demonstration of this circJo in Northern Zoology. 
