14 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The literature contains descriptions of many nest sites of the vul- 

 ture. The following citations show a variety of ways in which the 

 bird has solved the problem of protecting its nest. The nest site 

 is almost always on or near the ground, but in one case Isaac E. 

 Hess (1910) found a nest "twenty feet up in a dead stump, and 

 [another] six feet below the surface of the ground in the hollow 

 of a rotten stump." Manley B. Townsend (1914) notes another 

 tree nest. He says: "At the very top [of a gigantic elm tree] there 

 was the hollow, dead shell of the main trunk, and, in this, upon 

 the bare decayed wood, two eggs as large as Turkey eggs." Wil- 

 liam Lloyd (1887) speaks of the birds in western Texas as "breeding 

 in caves, but frequently on the bare edge of a bluff", and in Texas 

 also James J. Carroll (1900) mentions them as "selecting brush- 

 heaps, clumps of chaparral, caves in arroya banks, and hollow trees." 

 Dr. T. Gilbert Pearson (1919) says: "I have found the eggs of these 

 birds on a level with the ground in the hollow snag of an old tree, 

 the entrance to which was at the top, 14 feet above." 



In the two following quotations water plays the part of the 

 ancient moat in defending the vulture's castle. In a letter to Mr. 

 Bent, W. A. and George M. Smith describe a nest in Orleans 

 County, N. Y. They write: "The nest we found was located in an 

 old decayed hollow log which had fallen from its stump many years 

 ago, and lay rotting amid a luxuriant growth of ferns and other 

 swamp plants. There was nearly one foot of water all around, but 

 the two eggs were placed on a bed of dry leaves and decayed wood," 

 (See pi. 6.) 



Russell M. Kempton (1927) describes a similar nest in detail thus: 



The nest is in a live soft maple tree, whose trunk slants on a sixty degree 

 angle east by north and has a southern exposure; inside dimensions of the 

 cavity are diameter twenty-eight inches; height, forty-two inches and its bot- 

 tom is about forty inches from the ground. The top of the cavity is closed 

 by dry decayed wood. The surrounding ground is swampy and during wet 

 seasons water stands thirty inches deep around the base of the tree. 



The nest is unlined, and the eggs were deposited on clean broken up punk 

 * * *. It was always clean (also the ground around the tree), from the time 

 the eggs were laid until the nestlings left the nest. No offensive odors were 

 noted during the five years of observation, (except when the nestlings would 

 regurgitate for me). 



Continuing, Kempton shows the vulture's simple method of mak- 

 ing her nest with materials near at hand. 



The parent birds arrived March 18, and used the same nest to roost in during 

 the cold wet spring. On several occasions during daylight in April, I found 

 them in the nest standing with heads together, and they did not fly when I 

 approached within ten feet of the tree. Visiting the nest on April 28, I 

 watched them jtreparing the nest, by pulling at the dry rotten wood on the 

 side walls of the cavity with their beaks. When a large piece came loose 



