File:Musei Leveriani explicatio, anglica et latina (1792) (14563151550).jpg

Identifier: museileverianiex121792shaw (find matches)
Title: Musei Leveriani explicatio, anglica et latina
Year: 1792 (1790s)
Authors: Shaw, George, 1751-1813 Ryley, Charles Reuben, 1752?-1798, ill Reinagle, Philip, 1749-1833, ill Stone, Sarah, ca. 1760-1844, ill Skelton, William, 1763-1848, engraver Edwards, Sydenham, 1769?-1819, engraver
Subjects: Lever, Ashton, Sir, 1729-1788 Leverian Museum (London, England) Zoology Natural history museums Mammals Birds
Publisher: (London) : Impensis Jacobi Parkinson
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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Text Appearing Before Image:
nt. Tongue bifid. SPECIFIC CHARACTER, &c. Black Vulture, with the fliorter wing-feathers white with black tips, and naked throat.The Condor. F the tales related by Ibme of the early defcribers of the natural produAionsof America have any foundation in truth, there exifts fomewhere in thatcxtenfive continent a bird whofe enormous magnitude and prodigious powersof deftrudbion far exceed all that the largeft feathered tyrants of the ancienthemifphere can boaft, and all that the more fober philofophic faith ofEuropean naturalifts can eafily be induced to admit. Thefe writers afTure usthat the fpecies of Vulture called the Condor is capable of fhatching up andcariying off boys of ten years of age and upwards; and that a pair of thefedeftroyers in concert will attack a heifer in the midft of a field and tear it inpieces with the mod perfedl eafe. It is imagined that this dreadful vulturehas given rife to the exaggerated defcription of the bird which makes fo conspicuous. f1 f1 & B©
Text Appearing After Image:
Mffit!;!;i;iwi;i;;3ii;i£2,;,;;:,,SMSiiiS)li ( 5 ) confpicuous a figure in the Arabian tales, under the name of the Roc, orRue. Much allowance mull dcubdefs be given to the enlarged accounts ofthe ftrength and fiercenels recorded by the above-mentioned writers; buttliere is no reafon to queftion the exiftence of fome fpecies of American vultureof a fize far greater than others of its genus, and which may be capableof committing great devaftations amongft fuch of the animal ^^orid as are expofedto the fury of its attacks. In mufeums are fometimcs feen fpecimcns of the remio-es or lono- wino--feathers of this bird j and from thefe, if we may judge of the lize of thebird they belonged to, according to the well-known rule of ex pede Her-culem the bulk v.hich it fometimes attains, muft be greatly fuperior tothat of every other ipecies. In the Philofophical TranlaClions, vol. 18, p. 61,is a defcription of the quills of a bird of this fort which was fliot in Cliili,and which bird meafured 16

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