20 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Dr. Pearson (1919) writes: "To a limited extent, our southern 

 Vultures feed on living animals. Newly-born pigs are killed by 

 them, and, in some of the bird-colonies, * * * young Herons 

 and Ibises are often eaten." W. E. D. Scott (1892) corroborates 

 this statement. He says that the vulture in Jamaica "is certainly 

 not a carrion eater from choice, fresh meat being eagerly taken 

 whenever an opportunity offers, and when sore pressed young and 

 weakly chickens, etc., are taken up." 



The birds have been known to feed on grasshoppers, and they 

 readily eat fish. Dr. Alexander Wetmore (1920) mentions that in 

 New Mexico "they clambered over the piles of Potamogeton and 

 algae cast up last year and left on the shore, picking at it experi- 

 mentally, pulling off the surface and digging into the interior with 

 their bills as they would into carrion." 



James Green (1927) reports a remarkable observation of finding 

 a flock of 62 vultures, hard pressed for food, feeding on pumpkins. 

 He says: "A few had been touched by frost, making them soft, and 

 these had been all but pecked to shreds. But there were the marks 

 of the buzzard's powerful beaks on the sides of the big yellow 

 pumpkins that otherwise were sound as a dollar." 



The young pigs left dead on the road by automobiles in the South- 

 ern States afford opportunities to observe the dissecting habits of 

 the vulture. A bird sails along, doubles back, alights, and, fold- 

 ing its great wings, slowly approaches the pig. With head high 

 and tail held well above the ground, it sidles about, wary and 

 watchful lest the pig move, it seems; then reassured, it steps upon 

 the body and, with a deft hook of its beak, extracts the eyeball and 

 swallows it. 



The vulture next nips through the skin and by tearing or pulling 

 it back lays bare the muscles beneath. Three times I have seen vul- 

 tures make their first incision over the upper part of the shoulder 

 blade and pick out and devour the supraspinatus muscle before they 

 touched any other part of the body, except the eye. 



The vulture at its meal moves deliberately, but, like a skilled 

 workman, surely. It is watchful of intrusion and will not tolerate 

 the approach of other vultures while eating as small an animal as 

 a young pig. It turns upon any vulture that comes near, but more 

 with a remonstrance than a threat. Indeed, as we watch, we see 

 that a solemn but strict etiquette governs the bird at its meal. 



Mr. Bent once surprised a party of turkey vultures that were 

 feeding on a lot of dead tadpoles that had become stranded by the 

 drying up of a small pool in Florida. He has also often seen 

 them feeding on the main highways there, where snakes, turtles, 

 small birds, or small mammals have been killed by passing automo- 



