VULTURES 145 



trees that you had looked up to as very large are suddenly dwarfed. 

 The same thrill strikes you when overhead the great wings of the 

 vulture spread out and with mighty strokes carry the huge bird in 

 wide circles up through the sky; and, as you look down, the turkey 

 buzzards sailing below seem little more than circling swallows. 



VERNON BAILEY. 



The sight of a single California vulture is more than is vouch- 

 safed to most naturalists, but in 1894 Mr. Stephens actually en- 

 countered a flock of twenty-six of these magnificent birds. 



The condor is certainly one of the glories of the splendid state of 

 California, and every patriotic naturalist should do his part to enforce 

 the law for its protection. 



GENUS CATHARTES. 



325. Cathartes aura (Linn.). TURKEY VULTURE. 



Whole head and upper part of neck naked, the skin corrugated and 

 sparingly bristled ; nostrils large, elliptical ; wings 

 long, pointed, folding to or beyond the short round tail. 

 Adults: head bare and crimson in life, bill white; 

 lores and top of head sometimes with wart-like papil- 

 lae ; neck and under parts dull black ; upper parts 

 blackish glossed with green and purple, feathers 

 broadly edged with grayish brown, secondaries edged 

 with gray ; shafts of quills and tail feathers varying 

 from pale brown to yellowish white. Young : like 

 adults, but bill and naked skin blackish, brownish margins to wing cov- 

 erts less distinct. Length : 26-32, extent about 6 feet, wing 20-2o, tail 

 11-12, bill 1. 



Distribution. Breeds throughout most of temperate and tropical Amer- 

 ica, from the Saskatchewan south to Patagonia. 



Eggs. Laid in a cavern, a cavity between rocks, or a hollow in a log, 

 stump, or tree trunk ; 2, white, buffy, or greenish white, more or less 

 spotted or blotched with rich brown and purplish gray. 



Food. Carrion. 



One of the most familiar sights in southern and western skies is 

 the dark form of the turkey buzzard circling and soaring on out- 

 spread wings, its black body figure, as seen from below, set in a 

 bordering of gray wing. As the birds float in the sky apparently 

 wafted by every passing breeze they are keeping a sharp lookout 

 over the land outspread beneath them, and so quickly discover any 

 carrion that the ranchmen, who are numbered among their con- 

 stituents, find it quite unnecessary to bury their offal, depending 

 entirely upon the good offices of this self-constituted garbage com- 

 mittee of Nature's Board of Health. Along the Columbia River the 

 buzzards dispose of the dead fish on the shores. 



From the character of their food and their habit of eating on the 

 ground instead of carrying their quarry to a tree, the bills and feet 



