The British Guiana Museum. 249 
its thickness of bill, limbs, bones and body. Its 
wings, however, are weaker, in correspondence with 
its habits, for it lives only in the dense forests in 
the interior where it preys upon sloths, monkeys, deer, 
etc., upon which it suddenly pounces. When the bird is 
excited, and its crest of feathers is ere6led, it assumes a 
most ferocious aspe6l, that fully justifies the scientific 
name Thrasaetus or courageous eagle. The king vulture 
is one of the most gorgeously decorated birds, as regards 
the coloration of the head and neck, in the adult state of 
more than four years of age. At this time, the front and 
back of the long bare neck are of a vivid lemon-yellow 
colour, the sides of the neck and the top of the head of 
an intense vermilion, while the different parts of the head 
present striking combinations of blue, black, vermilion 
and orange. These colours, however, fade after death. 
The young specimens are comparatively dowdy, and 
present considerable differences in the plumage. The 
king vulture suffers no meaner vultures to feed with it, 
and these latter, profiting by experience, do not attempt 
it — this is the only kingly prerogative enjoyed by the 
bird. The vulturine birds are carrion-eaters, and are 
readily recognised by the head and neck being either 
quite bare or covered only by down ; while the hawks 
and eagles have the head and neck feathered. The birds 
commonly seen about the town, and called " carrion- 
crows" have no affinity whatever with the true crows ; 
they are striftly vultures (Cathartes aura and atrata) . 
The barn or screech-owl is perhaps the most widely distri- 
buted of all birds, being found in nearly all parts of the 
world. By ignorant and superstitious people it is regarded 
as a bird of ill omen, and even as apresagerof death ; but, 
