CHAPTER VIII 



SCAVENGERS AND STREET CLEANERS 



Love you not, then, to list and hear 

 The crackling of the gorse flowers near. 

 Pouring an orange-scented tide 

 Of fragrance o'er the desert wide? 

 To hear the buzzard whimpering shrill. 

 Hovering above you high and still? 



— Howitt, "The Honey Buzzard." 



THE vultures and buzzards and kites are the 

 feathered scavengers of the universe. They 

 abound in warm climates, especially in marshy re- 

 gions, where a rank luxuriance of organic life leaves 

 decaying vegetation and carcasses on all sides. In 

 some countries, notably some parts of South Amer- 

 ica, they inhabit the roofs of the houses and barns, 

 walk the streets in droves, and cleanse the cities of 

 all putrefaction. Certain garbage places are as 

 carefully watched by these scavengers as city refuse 

 cans are regularly visited by professional garbage 

 collectors. 



Wherever there is refuse or fragments of food 

 for these valuable workers, there they are found, 



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