TURKEY-BUZZARD. 45 



opportunity offers they eat with gluttonous voracity, and 

 fill themselves in such a manner as to be sometimes in- 

 capable of rising from the ground. They are accused at 

 times of attacking young pigs and lambs, beginning their 

 assault by picking out the eyes. Mr. Waterton, how- 

 ever, while at Demerara, watched them for hours together 

 amidst reptiles of all descriptions, but they never made 

 any attack upon them. He even killed lizards and frogs 

 and put them in their way, but they did not appear to 

 notice them until they attained the putrid scent. So 

 that a more harmless animal, living at all upon flesh, is 

 not in existence, than the Turkey Vulture. 



At night they roost in the neighbouring trees, but, I 

 believe, never in flocks like the Black kind. In winter 

 they sometimes pass the night in numbers on the roofs 

 of the houses, in the suburbs of the southern cities, and 

 appear particularly desirous of taking advantage of the 

 warmth which they discover to issue from the chimneys. 

 Here, when the sun shines, they and their black rela- 

 tives, though no wise social, may be observed perch- 

 ed in these conspicuous places basking in the feeble 

 rays, and stretching out their dark wings to admit the 

 warmth directly to their chilled bodies. And, when not 

 engaged in acts of necessity, they amuse themselves on 

 fine clear days, even at the coolest season of the year, 

 by soaring, in companies, slowly and majestically into the 

 higher regions of the atmosphere ; rising gently, but rap- 

 idly, in vast spiral circles, they sometimes disappear 

 beyond the thinnest clouds. They practise this lofty 

 flight particularly before the commencement of thunder 

 storms ; when, elevated above the war of elements, they 

 float at ease in the ethereal space with outstretched 

 wings, making no other apparent effort than the light 

 balloon, only now and then steadying their sailing pin- 



