24 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



the wings in flight, whereas the vulture is black with a square-tipped 

 tail, which fits snugly between the wings. The posterior half of 

 the buzzard's wing, seen from below, is gray, the color extending 

 to the end of the wing. The vulture's wing is black with a gray 

 tip, and the bird flaps its wings much more frequently than the 

 buzzard does. At close range the buzzard's head and neck are seen 

 to be dull red. These parts in the vulture are black. 



Coues (1874) brings out the difference in the shape of the wings 

 when he says of the buzzard that "the fore-border of the wing is 

 bent at a salient angle, and there is a corresponding reentrance in 

 its hind outline", and of the vulture that "the front edge of the 

 wing is almost straight, and the back border sweeps around in a 

 regular curve to meet it at an obtuse point, where the ends of the 

 quills are neither spread apart nor bent upward." 



The bald eagle, a much larger, sturdier bird than the buzzard, is 

 at once distinguished by its more conspicuous head, proportionally 

 longer secondaries, and powerful, driving wingbeats. 



The California condor, compared to the buzzard, is a giant. 



Enemies. — "VV. E. D. Scott (1892) reports that in Jamaica the 

 vulture is "said to have decreased greatly in numbers in the past 

 few years, being preyed upon, like all other ground, and many low 

 tree builders, b}'^ the mongoose." 



The nestlings are subject to attack from predatory animals, but the 

 adults have few enemies. 



It was feared at one time that the vulture should be held respon- 

 sible for the spreading of hog cholera, but the bird has been cleared 

 recently of the suspicion, Howell (1932), quoting from the 26th 

 Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Florida, 1914, says 

 that "the virus of hog cholera is digested in the intestinal tract of 

 buzzards and the droppings of buzzards fed on the flesh of hogs 

 dead from cholera do not produce cholera when mixed in the feed 

 of hogs." 



Game. — The turkey vulture plays a negligible role as a game bird, 

 although G. B. Benners (1887) reports that in Texas the Negroes 

 eat the 3'oung birds. 



Frank L. Burns (190G) recounts that when a number of birds, 

 among which was a vulture, were presented to an Italian workman, 

 "the vulture, being the largest, was naturally considered the prize, 

 so it was cleaned, and stuffed with plenty of garlic, and the entire 

 household proceeded to make a meal of it; with the result that all 

 were made deathly sick." 



Winter. — ^W^inter, with its frost and snow, drives the bird from the 

 northern part of its summer range, for, as Thomas H. Jackson (1903) 

 says, "to obtain food here [Pennsylvania] in zero weather, with deep 

 snow covering everything, would seem for them an impossibility." 



