( 90 ) 



John-Croio Vulture,'^ {Turkey -buzzard, Wilson; Cathartes 

 aura, Vulture aura, Linn ; Cathartes aura, Illiger.) Ann. 

 pi. 151.t 



The history of this species has been so ably written by 

 Wilson and Audubon, that I shall do little more than touch 

 on one or two disputed points in its economy. An excellent 

 memoir of this vulture, communicated to me by my valued 

 friend, Richard Hill, Esquire, of Spanish Town, affords some 

 interesting particulars : — 



" Notwithstanding it forms so common a feature in our 

 landscapes, being seen every day and everywhere, on the 

 mountain as well as on the plain, in the city as w^ell as in 

 the country, the Aura is not common to the West Indies. 

 It exists in Cuba and Trinidad, but is unknown in Hayti, 

 and in all the intermediate islands of the Caribbean chain. 

 We are no doubt indebted for it to an accidental colony, 

 blown over to us from Cuba, and Cuba itself owes it to some 

 stray visitants from the neighbouring continent of Florida. 

 Some similar fortuity imparted to us, in common with Cuba, 

 from America, its naturalized hive-bee, which is said to have 

 been at comparatively a late period an introduction into St 

 Domingo. 



" Those who ascribe the power which the vulture possesses 

 of discerning from a distance its carrion food, to the sense of 

 seeing or to the sense of smelling exclusively, appear to me 

 to be both in error. It is the two senses, exerted sometimes 

 singly, but generally unitedly, which give the facility which 

 it possesses of tracing its appropriate food from far distances 

 * * * * I shall relate one or two occurrences, which seem 

 to me to be instances in which the sense of seeing and the 

 sense of smelling were, sometimes separately, and sometimes 

 unitedly, exerted by the vulture in its quest for food. 



" A poor German immigrant wdio lived alone in a detached 



* Length 2o\ inches, expanse 66, tail 9^, wing from flexure 20j, rictus 2^^, 

 arms 3, middle toe 2^^, claw ■{^. 



t The above is extracted from an interesting volume on " The Birds of Ja- 

 maica," by Philip Ilenry Gorse and Richard Hill, Esquires, of Spanish Town, 

 Jamaica, just published by Mr Van Voorst, London. 



