100 BIEDS 



In some of the southern cities the Black Vultures 

 become very tame, and may be seen perched on the house- 

 tops and strolling along the public thoroughfares, where 

 the dogs and the passing throng seem not to disturb them. 



It has ever been a mystery how these birds discern 

 a carcass, whether by sight, by smell or by some special 

 sense not possessed by any other living thing. A hog 

 or steer is hardly cold in death before Vultures are hov- 

 ering over the body, and they seem to come from all 

 directions, when, two hours before, not a Buzzard was 

 to be seen. 



When a boy, I used to try to deceive these big birds 

 by feigning death, but I never succeeded ; all they would 

 do was to quicken their speed, as they sailed over me 

 with their heads turned to one side to get a good view. 

 But just drag a dead hog out into a pasture and every 

 tree in that vicinity is quickly filled with these putrid 

 flesh eaters. They do not attack any living thing; they 

 are far from being ''the purifiers of the air," as some 

 writers have seen fit to call them, although they are 

 looked upon in some localities as great and beneficient 

 scavengers. 



In Mexico, these repulsive things, in some of the 

 cities, dispute with you the freedom of the streets and 

 sidewalks. Any country or city that depends on these 

 filth-eaters to cleanse the streets or to get rid of dead 

 animals and other refuse is resorting to an out-of-date 

 and dangerous so-called sanitary measure. 



While on a bird-picturing trip along the gulf coast 

 of Texas, I saw many Vultures and their nests. Both 

 birds assisted in the incubation, which, I was told, lasts 

 twenty-eight days. By a peculiar, awkward hopping on 

 the ground, as they approach the nest, they make a Httle 

 path easily followed. 



Goss says : ' ' Their rank odor is not alone from their 

 food, but from natural causes." Nature here did the 

 Buzzard a great favor by making its own odoriferous 

 body out-rank that of its food supply. 



Can you imagine any bird more repulsive than this 

 one, with its nauseating feeding habits, its natural in- 

 tolerable stench and its refusal to defend itself when at- 

 tacked, except by hisses, only? The Vulture possesses 



