TURKEY VULTURE 15 



the female would hold it down with one foot and tear it into small bits, which 

 she spread about on the floor, where the eggs were to be deposited. The 

 interested male bird, was a hindrance in nest making, and every now and then 

 the female placed her head under his breast and pushed him out of the way. 

 Once he tumbled out of the tree. However, und.nmted, he clambered back 

 keeping his head down, so that his mate could not repeat her attack. 



Mr. Kempton observed that "both birds alternately covered the eggs 

 during incubation." 



Paul G. Howes (1926), in an account of a vulture's nest in a cave 

 in the State of New York, says : 'Another point of interest to me 

 was that there was absolutely no odor about the nest." At this time 

 the nest contained eggs, but on a later visit he remarks: "A very 

 offensive odor emanated from the rocky shelter now for the first time, 

 and as we approached very quietly, the old bird bounded clumsily 

 to the rear of the cave. * * * The young one had hatched 

 safely, had had its first taste of carrion, as its vile odor attested." 



Thomas H. Jackson (1903) reports an unusual nest site. He says: 

 "I found a pair that had taken possession of an abandoned pig-sty 

 in the woods, which furnished them an admirable place to set up 

 housekeeping. Unfortunately, the smooth board floor had allowed 

 one of their two eggs to roll away, and only one was hatched. Here 

 they were safe from the attack of foxes, raccoons or other night 

 prowlers." 



A, L. Pickens (1927), reporting some "out-of-the-ordinary" 

 records, includes the following on the turkey vultures. 



On May 1, 1927, I was at the home of Mr. Eiihu Wigington in Anderson 

 County, S. C, and he took me to an old and neglected barn in a wood near 

 his home to see a nest of this bird. I found the eggs, two in number, on 

 the refuse of the stable floor, close up in a corner. About ten feet away a 

 domestic hen was brooding on her nest in a pile of forage, the two being 

 separated, however, by a lov/ partition. The vulture could gain access to its 

 nest through a small window in the stable, or through a door at some greater 

 distance. Mr. Wigington told me that this was the third year this place 

 had been used by the Vulture for a breeding spot. 



Of the time of nesting Bendire (1892) speaks as follows: "In 

 most of the Southern States nidification begins usually about the 

 latter part of March, occasionally even in February; in the Middle 

 States generally about the last week in April or the beginning of 

 May, and in the more northern portions of its range it may be 

 protracted till June, according to the season." 



Charles E. Doe writes to us of a set of eggs he took from an 

 old caracara's nest, 20 feet up in a lone palmetto on a Florida 

 prairie. 



Eggs. — [Author's noi^: The turkey vulture lays almost inva- 

 riably two eggs, occasionally only one and very rarely three. I liaA^e 

 a photograph (pi. 7) of a nest containing four, but they were in 



