When pressed by hunger, they sometimes extend their range down to the hot coast lands of the Pacific Ocean; but they are evidently birds that can bear cold much better than heat.
"The _King-vulture_," continued Lucien, "is the next species that claims our attention.

He is also a Sarcoramph (_Sarcoramphus Papa_), and the only one of that genus besides the condor.

He is unlike the condor in many respects.

He is not much of a mountain bird, but prefers the low savannas and open plains.

He prefers heat to cold, and he is rarely met with outside the tropics, although he makes occasional visits to the peninsula of Florida and the northern plains of Mexico; but in these places he is only a rare and migratory bird.