CALIFORNIA VULTURE—Family Cathartidæ.
324. Gymnogyps californianus. 50 inches.
The largest of the Vultures, with an extent of about ten feet, and weighing twenty pounds or more. Its plumage is blackish, with lengthened lanceolate feathers about the neck. Head and neck without feathers and of an orange color. Wing coverts grayish, tipped with white in adult birds. The birds are very rare in their restricted range, and becoming more so each year, owing to their being shot and the nests robbed. While the eggs are but rarely found, and obtained at great risk, they are not as unobtainable as many suppose.
Nest.—They lay but a single egg, placing it generally in caves or recesses of the rocks in the face of cliffs, hundreds of feet from the ground; ashy gray in color (4.45 × 2.55).