342 NORTH ^UIERICAN BIRDS. 



Dr. Townsend states that in their walk they resemble a Turkey strutting 

 over the ground witli great dignity, but are clumsy and awkward when 

 tliey endeavor to hasten their movements. When they attempt to rise from 

 the ground they always hop several yards, in order to give an impetus to 

 their heavy body. Dr. Cooper discredits tlie statement of ilr. Taylor, that 

 tliis \'ulture has been known to kill and carry off a hare in its claws. These 

 are straight and weak, and not adapted for such uses. 



Dr. Ileermann states that a nest of this bird with young was discovered 

 in a thicket on the Tuolumne Iliver. It was about eight feet back from the 

 entrance of a crevice in the rocks, completely surrounded and masked by 

 thick underbrush and trees, and composed of a few loose sticks tlirown neg- 

 ligently together. He found two other nests, of a like construction and 

 similarly situated, at the head of Merced River and in the mountains. From 

 the latter the Indians were in the habit of yearly robbing the young, to kill 

 at one of their festivals. 



Mr. Ale.xander S. Taylor, of Monterey, published a series of papers in a 

 California journal relati\e to this Vulture. In one of these he mentions that 

 a ]\Ie.\ican ranckero, in hunting among the highest peaks of the Santa Lucia 

 range, disturbed two pairs of them from their nesting-places, and brought 

 away from one a young bird a few days old, and from the other an egg. There 

 was no nest, the eggs having been laid in the hollow of a tall old robles-oak, 

 in a steep barranca, near the summit of one of the highest peaks. These 

 birds are said by some hunters to make no nest, but simply lay their eggs 

 on tlie ground at the foot of old trees or on the bare rocks of solitary peaks. 

 Others affirm that the}' sometimes lay their eggs in old nests of Eagles and 

 Buzzards, ilr. Taylor states that the egg weighed 10.50 ounces, the con- 

 tents weighing 8.75. The egg was of a dead duU white color, the surface of 

 the shell slightly roughened. It was nearly a perfect ellipse in shape, and 

 measured 4.50 inches in length by 2.38 in diameter. The egg-shell held 

 nine fluid ounces of water. The young Vulture weighed ten ounces. His 

 skin was of an ocreous-yellow, covered with a fine down of a dull wliite. 



Dr. Canfield informed Dr. Cooper that he lias seen as many as one hun- 

 dred and fifty of these birds at one time and place in the vicinity of ante- 

 lopes he had killed, and noticed that they invariably sighted tlieir prey. They 

 are often killed by feeding on animals tliat have been poisoned with strych- 

 nine. They are not feared by the rancheros, yet Dr. Canfield has known a 

 number to attack a 3"oung calf, separate it from its mother, and kill it. A 

 vaqucro having killed a large grizzly bear, left it on the plains near the sea- 

 shore, to return to the house, about three miles distant, for assistance. On 

 his return, after an absence of about two liours, a flock of tliese Vultures 

 had cleaned the entire carcass, leaving only the skin and the skeleton. This 

 Vulture and the Turkey-Buzzard often feed together over tlie same carcass, 

 and generally do some fighting together. Many of them nest in the high 

 mountains east and south of the Carmelo Valley, and also near Santa Cruz, 



