The Riverside Natural History Volume 4 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 edition. Excerpt: ...is naked, or only hairy, and most brilliantly colored. Waterton gives the following description of these parts. "The throat and back of the neck are of a fine lemon color; both sides of the neck, from the ears downwards, of a rich scarlet; behind the corrugated part there is a white spot. The crown of the head is scarlet, betwixt the lower mandible and the eye, and close by the ear there is a part which has a fine silvery-blue appearance. Just above the white spot a portion of the skin is blue and the rest scarlet; the skin which juts out behind the neck, and appears like an oblong caruncle, is blue in part and in part orange. The bill is orange and black, the caruncles on the forehead orange, and the cere orange, the orbits scarlet, and the irides white." Unlike its near relative, the condor, it is strictly a bird of the forest, not often met with among the mountains, but preferring the wooded banks of rivers, the depths of impenetrable swamps, and the margins of broad savannas or stagnant marshes. It gets its common name of 'king' from the belief of the Indians that the other vultures stand in awe of it, and will not venture to eat until after the royal appetite is satisfied; and there appears to be considerable ground for this belief, although its size is less than that of the turkey-buzzard, and it seems to be even more sluggish. The condor, Sarcorhamphus gryphus, has usually been considered the largest of the birds of prey, and the most absurd stories have been told of its strength and daring. In point of fact there are several Old World species fully as large, and some of them probably a little larger, while the Californian vulture frequently reaches the same size. Probably the condor never exceeds twelve feet in expanse...