tures appear
in the codices and elsewhere. Indeed, they are among the most common of
the birds depicted. Two species only seem to occur in the writings, the
king vulture and the black vulture. The former is a large black and
white bird with the head and the upper part of the neck unfeathered,
except for numerous short, almost bristle-like plumules. These naked
portions are often colored red and there is a large more or less
squarish fleshy knob at the base of the upper ramus of the beak. This
conspicuous protuberance has been seized upon as a characteristic in the
conventionalized figures, and serves to identify the king from the black
vulture. In addition, a series of concentric circles about the eye seems
to be a rather constant mark of the king vulture, though they are also
sometimes found in connection with figures which, from the absence of
the rostral knob, must represent black vultures (Pl. 18, figs. 18, 27;
Pl. 19, figs. 7, 10, 11). In the case of the bird shown in Pl. 19, fig.
1, the knob is hardly apparent, and the same is true of Pl. 19, fig. 13.
Both these may represent king vultures. A remarkable figure is that
shown in Pl. 17, fig. 4, in which an ocellated turkey and a king vulture
confront each other with necks intertwined. The short hair-like black
feathers of the head are represented in this as well as in Pl. 17, fig.
11, and in the glyph carved in stone (Pl. 17, fig. 10), which from the
presence of the knob is probably a king vulture. The characteristic knob
is shown in a variety of ways. Thus, in Pl. 17, fig. 1, it is greatly
developed and resembles a large horn with a falcate tip. In Pl. 17, fig.
4, it is sharply angular and nearly square. Frequently, it is a circle
with a centered ring surmounted by one or two additional rings or
terminated by a mitre-shaped structure (Pl. 17, figs. 2, 5-7, 8-12). A
very simple form was found in the carving shown in Pl. 17, fig. 13,
where a long projecting knob is seen at the base of the culmen.

The king vulture seems to have a part to play as a mythological being,
as it is pictured as a god with human body and bird head in the act of
cohabiting with a woman in Dresden 19a, and with a dog in Dresden 13c
(Pl. 17, fig. 3). Moreover, the same vulture god is represented on a
blue background and under a band of constellation signs in Dresden 38b,
and is also to be noted in Dresden 8a. Foerstemann (1906, p. 66) shows
that the thirteenth day of the Maya month is reached in