VULTURID^. — CATHARTES AURA. 3 



Lewis and Clarke met them near the Falls of the Columbia River, in latitude 

 48°. The southern limits of the migrations of the Turkey Buzzard cannot be 

 given with precision. It is impossible to determine how far this species has 

 been mistaken for the C. jota, as already stated. It is given by Lembeye and 

 Dr. Gundlach as a resident of Cuba, by Gosse as a bird of Jamaica ; it was found 

 by Dr. Cabot in Central America, though not so abimdantly as the C. atratus ; 

 and Darwin, in the Zoology of the Beagle, mentions it as having been obtained as 

 far to the south as latitude 55°, even the extreme points of Terra del Fuego, West- 

 ern Patagonia, and the Falkland Islands. It is, however, probable that the bird 

 of which Darwin speaks is not the C. aura, but its kindred species already referred 

 to. Flow far this is the case with the birds met with by the others named, may 

 admit of some doubt, though the probability is that all the authorities cited refer 

 to the northern species. * 



The Turkey Buzzard invariably lays on the ground, for the most part in hol- 

 low trees, stumps, or decaying logs. It constructs no nest, but deposits the eggs 

 with little or no preparatory pains for their shelter. Mr. Ord found them breed- 

 ing as early as the month of May, in the deep recesses of the solitary swamps 

 of New Jersey. He describes the nest as formed, without any painstaking, in 

 a truncated hollow tree, and in excavated stumps or logs, and mentions the 

 number of eggs as from two to four. Except in regard to the number of eggs, 

 which is rarely, if ever, more than two, these observations substantially correspond 

 with all the reliable accounts I have seen of their breeding. In Jamaica, Mr. 

 Gosse writes that the situations usually selected by the Turkey Buzzard of that 

 island, for laying and hatching its eggs, are hollows and ledges of rocks, in 

 secluded places or inaccessible crags and cliffs. A little dry trash, he adds, or 

 decaying leaves, are all the apology for a nest. Mr. Audubon mentions, that on 

 the island of Galveston, where this Vulture is plentiful, he several times found 

 its nest, as usual, on the ground, but in an unusual place; namely, on a le-\el 

 part of the salt marshes, either under the wide-spread branches of cactuses, or 

 among tall grass growing beneath low bushes. The eggs which Mr. Audubon 

 obtained at Galveston, and which he supposed to be those of the C. aura, have 

 been ascertained unquestionably to belong to the C. atratus. It is, therefore, prob- 

 able that the nests he has described also belonged to birds of the latter species. 



Dr. C. Kollock, of Cheraw, South Carolina, informs me that in his neighbor- 

 hood both this species and the Black Vulture frequent places in the interior of 

 SAvamps and thick woods, generally called Buzzards' roosts ; that they congregate 

 there through the year in large numbers, and usually breed in the immediate 

 vicinity of these places. Mr. Audubon visited one of these roosts, near Charles- 

 ton, S. C. It extended over two acres of ground, which were entirely destitute 

 of vegetation. 



The e(fgs of this species exhibit certain deviations in size, and, occasionally, in 

 their markings, yet for the most part preserve specific characteristics. The 



California (Journal of Philadelphia Academy, Second Series, Vol. I.), states that he found C. aura 

 as common on the Pacific as on the Atlantic coast. 



