320 Bird - Lore 



from the barn, or the deceased hog in the pasture. They eat dead fish left on 

 the sea-beaches, and I once saw one feeding on the floating body of an alligator. 

 In many of the southern states, where no laws exist requiring cattle owners 

 to fence in their stock, cows are constantly killed by railroad locomotives, and, 

 as one passes such spots on the train, it is a common sight to see Turkey 

 Buzzards and Black Vultures rise from their feast and flap up to the limbs of 

 the neighboring trees. When the planter loses a horse by death, the body is 

 dragged off into the woods and left. Two or three days later only bones and 

 trampled grass mark the last resting-place of the departed beast of burden. 



In many a southern city the Vultures constitute a most effective street- 

 cleaning department, and the garbage piles on the city's dump-heaps are swept 

 and purified by them. When the rancher of the West dresses cattle for home 

 consumption or the market, his dusky friends in feathers gladly save him the 

 trouble of burying the offal. 



These Vultures at times anticipate the death of an animal and gather about 

 it while waiting the appointed hour. While working in a most forbidding morass, 

 deep in a Florida swamp, the writer on one occasion came upon a striking 

 example of this custom. Progress was slow, and it was impossible to advance 

 except with the greatest care and by springing from clump to clump of palmetto 

 roots. Between these supports the mud seemed to be fathomless. Here, in 

 these forbidding surroundings, I came upon a cow sunk into the mud to a line 

 half-way up her body. Her condition was absolutely hopeless, and she had 

 become so exhausted that she was scarcely able to move her head. 



On trees and bushes on all sides and above her, Turkey Buzzards and Black 

 Vultures were perched to the number of fifteen or twenty. Two of them were 

 standing on palmetto clumps but a few feet from her head. There was no 

 possible wa>' of spving the doomed animal — the Vultures were sure of their 

 banquet. 



I recall a certain slaughter-pen in a little rural community where twice a 

 week a beef was butchered, and the meat immediately sold to the people of 

 the surrounding country. The killing took place every Wednesday and Satur- 

 day afternoon. A group of Vultures were always present, sitting around in the 

 trees and waiting for the butchers to depart with the hide and flesh. The refuse 

 was always left for them. 



Turkey Buzzards are fond of gathering about pens where hogs are fed, for 

 a certain amount of scraps of food fall to their share. The birds may be seen 

 perched here all hours of the day, sometimes with wings expanded as if for 

 the purpose of allowing the sun's rays to purify their feathers. They feed 

 almost entirely on the ground, although occasionally they will carry some 

 choice morsel to a less public spot to eat it. Their feet are not well 

 adapted to holding their food and eating it while standing on a limb of a 

 tree or other narrow perch, but at times they do eat on the top of a stump or 

 the roof of some building. 



