Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/433

 w 413 fed with the regurgitated food of the parents. The griffon or tawny vulture (gypsfulvus, Sav.) is 3 ft. long and 8 ft. in alar extent, of a brownish gray approaching fawn, the down of the head and neck cinereous white, and the collar mixed white and brown ; quilla and tail brown ; the bill is large and swollen at the sides. It is widely extended among moun- tainous regions, frequenting the Alps, Pyre- nees, and Caucasus in summer, going south in winter; the nest is sometimes made in lofty trees. The Egyptian vulture, sometimes called Pharaoh's chicken (neophron percnopterus, Sav.), and by some regarded as belonging to a distinct subfamily, is about 2 ft. long, with a very long and slender bill, the third quill the longest, tail moderate and wedge-shaped, and tarsi plumed below the knees ; the adult California Vulture (Pseudogryphus Californianus). male is white with black quills, the female and young brown. It is held in high esteem by the Egyptians for its services in devouring the filth of their cities and the decaying mat- ters brought down by the Nile; it is often represented on their monuments. It oome- times devours small living animals. It fol- lows caravans, consuming everything that dies. Carrion Crow (Catharista atrata). From Africa they come to the Pyrenees and Alps. Among the American vultures or ca- thartidce, the condor and the turkey buzzard have been described under those titles; the king vulture has been noticed under the for- mer. The California vulture (pseudogrypJius Califomianus, Shaw) is the largest rapacious bird of North America, being over 4 ft. long and about 10 ft. in extent of wings ; it is shi- ning black above, duller below, with seconda- ries grayish, white band on wings, bill yellow- ish white, and head and bare neck orange yel- low and red ; it is found west of the Rocky mountains, especially in the vicinity of rivers, and is inferior in size only to the condor, which it resembles in habits. The black vulture or carrion crow (catharista atrata, Bartr.) is 23 in. long and 4 ft. in alar extent ; the color is deep black, with a bluish gloss on the back and wings ; shafts of quills white ; head and naked part of neck with warts and a few hair-like feathers, and bluish black ; bill dark, yellowish at the end. It is found in the southern states and Central and South America, gregarious, associating with the turkey buzzards, and with them performing the office of scavengers, even in the streets of populous cities. It is com- mon in Chili and Peru, and in the latter Tschudi speaks of it as sitting in incredible numbers on the walls of the streets and on the roofs of houses, in the midday heat, asleep with the head under the wings. w WTHE 23d letter of the English alpha- j bet. It is peculiar to some of the Teu- tonic and Celtic languages, being foreign to the Romanic, and in sound, though not in form, also to the Slavic branches of the Indo-Eu- ropean family, while retained by its Asiatic branches. Its earliest historical appearance is in a diploma of Clovis III. at the end of the 7th century. It is formed, as its name in Eng- lish shows, by the doubling of the letter ti or v. In English, Welsh, Dutch, and Flemish, and in German (as spoken in some parts) after sch and 2, it is so pronounced that while most writers describe it as a semi-vowel, others, including Noah Webster, have classed it as a pure vow- el, equivalent in fact to the English oo ; but L6on Vai'sse contends that in these cases it is a perfect consonant of the labial class, being produced by a movement of the larynx, while the vowels are sounded by a steady tension of the walls of the pharynx. Jakob Grimm also classes it as a labial aspirate. In German, except in the cases above mentioned, and in Swedish, in which it has long been compara-