162 NESTS AND EGGS OF 



small bush or overhanging rock on a steep hillside. In Ohio and other 

 eastern States fresh eggs may be found in April and May. 



Notwithstanding the arguments set forth by renowned naturalists 

 that this bird is not possessed of an extraordinary power of smell, it 

 has been proven recently by the most satisfactory experiments that the 

 Turkey Buzzard does possess a keen sense of smell by which it can 

 distinguish the odor of flesh at an immense distance. The flight of this 

 Vulture is truly beautiful, and no landscape with its patches of green 

 woods and grassy fields, is perfect without its dignified figure, high in 

 air, moving in round circles ; so steady, graceful and easy, and appa- 

 rently without any effort. It is a very silent bird, only uttering a hiss 

 of defiance or warning to its neighbors when feeding, or a low gutteral 

 croak of alarm when flying low overhead. 



The eggs are creamy or yellowish-white, variously blotched and 

 splashed with different shades of brown and usually showing other 

 spots of lavender and purplish-drab ; two in number, sometimes only 

 one; average size about 2.73x1.87. Six specimens measure 2. Sox 

 1.89, 2.73x1.89, 2.79x1.97, 2.80x1.91, 2.84x1.88, 2.87x1.90. Mr. 

 H. R. Taylor, of Alameda, Cal., records finding early in April a set of 

 immaculate eggs of this species.* 



Mr. J. Parker Norris has a series of thirteen sets in his cabinet, and 

 they show great variation in size and coloring. They all contain two 

 eggs each. The ground color on nearly all of them is creamy or 

 yellowish-white, and, as a rule, they can readily be distinguished from 

 eggs of C. atrata, as the ground color of the latter is usually of a bluish- 

 white. The spots on the eggs of aura are more in number, but as a 

 rule not as large as those on atrata. 



326. Catharista atrata (BARTR.) [455.] 



Black Vulture. 



Hab. Whole of tropical and warm-temperate America, south to Argentine Republic and Chili, north 

 regularly to the Carolinas and Lower Mississippi Valley, irregularly or casually to Maine, New York, Ohio, 

 Indiana, Illinois, etc. 



This Vulture, called Carrion Crow, is very common along our 

 South Atlantic and Gulf States, and is resident from South Carolina 

 southward ; in many places it is more numerous than the Turkey 

 Buzzard, and its general traits, nesting habits, etc., are the same, breed- 

 ing in hollow logs, decayed trunks of trees, stumps, and on the ground. 

 In the Southern Atlantic cities the Black Vulture is said to be a semi- 

 domestic bird, and even protected by law. Their services as scaven- 

 gers in removing offal render them valuable and almost a necessity in 

 Southern cities. 



'-Ornithologist and Oologist, Vol. XIII, p. 102. 



