A young bird was hatched in London after fifty-four days' incubation, but apparently nearly a year is taken to gain full powers of flight. _Gyparchus papa_, the King Vulture, of tropical America, save the West Indies, has a small fleshy crest on the cere in both sexes, but no wattles, though the skin of the sides of the head is wrinkled; the occiput is hairy, and a ruff of broad plumbeous feathers surrounds the neck. The rump, tail, and most of the wings are black; the remaining plumage being creamy white, the bare throat and back of the neck yellow, the skin of the head and neck elsewhere orange and red with blue patches near the ears, the bill orange and black, the irides white. This bird haunts woods near rivers and marshes, especially towards the coast, and feeds on snakes and carrion, from which it drives all other species; in flight, habit of gorging, and eggs, it resembles the Condor. Little smaller is the Californian Vulture (_Pseudogryphus californianus_), formerly extending to the Fraser River in British {140}Columbia, in which the long flat head and neck are bare, smooth, and orange-coloured, the bill being whitish and the irides carmine. The plumage is dull black with a whitish wing-band, due to the margins of the greater coverts and secondaries; lanceolate feathers form a basal ruff round the neck, and extend over the lower parts. The habits are similar to those of the foregoing, but the loose nest of sticks, placed in cavities of trees or crags, contains one rough greenish-white egg. The genus _Rhinogryphus_ or _Cathartes_ ("Turkey-Buzzard") includes _R. aura_, of temperate and tropical America, reaching to Tierra del Fuego and the Falklands, in which the head and upper neck are naked, smooth, and crimson; and _R. burrovianus_, found from Mexico to Brazil, where they are orange and the nape is feathered; the yellow-headed _R. perniger_, of Amazonia, being hardly separable. All are black with whitish bill, red irides, and a tuft of bristles in front of the eye; but the first has brown-margined feathers and metallic sheen above. In common with _Catharista_, they have the cere very long. During the day-time these quarrelsome scavengers, ubiquitous but necessary, haunt the house-tops and roadways of towns and villages, whence they retire at night to groves or forests in company; otherwise their habits are those of Vultures generally. They have been said to pair for life, while they deposit two whitish eggs with red-brown and lilac markings in some hollow of a crag, tree, or log, often on or near the ground, adding little, if any, bedding. _Catharista atratus_, the "Carrion Crow" or Black Vulture, which ranges from Argentina and Chili to the West Indies and Carolina, and occasionally further north, is most plentiful near the coast; the fearless demeanour, flight, manner of feeding, nesting habits and eggs, resembling those of Turkey-Buzzards, though the wing-action is more laboured, and the gait shuffling. Audubon says that the