MIMOGYPES 
which only explains that they are inhabitants of America 
and that they are vultures. A deft name introduced 
by the late Mr. Seebohm, viz. Mimogypes, emphasizes 
the now widely received view, that these birds are not 
near allies of the vultures proper, i.e. those of the 
Old World, but that they are vulturine in habit though 
belonging to quite a different group of birds. No one 
looking at the great condor of the Andes would come 
to any other conclusion than that it is a vulture; and 
yet even externally, it may be distinguished from its 
carrion-loving allies of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The 
feet in the first place are decidedly feebler than those of 
vultures, strictly speaking. The bill is less developed, 
and it would be noticed after a short time that the condor 
has no scream, or indeed voice of any kind, to raise the 
echoes such as is possessed by the birds of prey of this 
side of the Atlantic Ocean. It can, in fact, only hiss. 
The reason for this is quite the same kind of reason as 
that which forbids to the true storks the capacity for 
uttering their sentiments. The bird has not a “ syrinx, ” 
as the avian voice organ is termed. The windpipe or 
trachea passes without change of character into the 
two tubes, the bronchi, which supply with air the two 
lungs. No modification of the cartilaginous rings at the 
bifurcation, no muscles for altering the approximation 
of these rings, are there to aid in the production of a 
definite voice, even if only one capable of expressing 
itself in a scream, which is the hawk-like mode of ex- 
‘pression. The condor, too, and its immediate allies, 
do not possess what so many birds do possess, i.e. two 
blind tubes, the ceca, arising from the intestine. In 
the hawks, eagles and vultures of the Old World these 
ceca are always present, though very tiny; in Sar- 
corhamphus even the very vestiges have gone. There 
is no trace of the blind appendages. Other anatomical 
features which differentiate these birds need not be gone 
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