1 62 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 150 



Soaring turkey vultures, a constant feature of open skies through- 

 out tropical America, are more in evidence in open country but are 

 seen regularly also where forest cover remains. On the wing their 

 graceful evolutions, performed with a minimum of obvious effort, 

 constantly please the eye, but birds at rest, in hunched position with 

 featherless heads protruding, are completely without esthetic attrac- 

 tion. Their food is carrion, like that of their companion species, and 



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pm/w 



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Fig. 32. — Turkey vulture, noneca, Cathartes aura. 



they are found regularly at large carcasses, usually a bit apart from 

 the jostling confusion of any mob of black vultures. The turkey 

 vulture takes fresher flesh when available and swings and circles for 

 hours, now high, now low, in its search for recently dead bodies of 

 animals of any kind, large or small. Sea beaches at changing tides 

 are examined, and in recent years their highway patrol gives them 

 constant small supplies of food in the bodies of animals killed by 

 automobiles. 



