192 



THE OOLOGIST 



cypress trees were growing here, and 

 to investigate a small colony of Wardi, 

 I had to go 125 feet up in one of them. 

 The space between these trees was 

 thickly strewn with dead logs, the ma- 

 jority of which were hollow, these 

 were lying in all kinds of positions 

 and made travel through them very 

 difficult, and somewhat dangerous for 

 the reason of several large Mocasins 

 that were sunning themselves on the 

 under side of large logs. In this 

 swamp there were hundreds of Black 

 Vultures. 1 investigated several logs 

 from which the old vultures had run, 

 but saw no signs of any eggs this ear- 

 ly. But I marked this swamp down as 

 my "Happy Hunting Grounds" because 

 it was the most ideal place for the 

 Black Vulture that I had ever run 

 across. February 10th. 1 found my 

 first set and eggs could be found in 

 this swamp right along up to July 

 1st, when the long deferred "rainy sea- 

 son" set in in earnest and in two days 

 this swamp was six feet in water. 

 Hundreds of young vultures met their 

 death in this flooded Roost and 1 have 

 no doubt that many sets of eggs were 

 deserted from the same cause. Many 

 pairs from actual observation reared 

 two broods and were incubating the 

 third set. Of course I cannot say posi- 

 tively it was the third set by the same 

 pair of birds but it was the third set 

 for that particular nest, and previous 

 obsei-vations have shown me that Mrs. 

 Catharista is very fond of her old nest- 

 ing site, and will return to it repeat- 

 edly no matter how much bothered. 

 Twenty-one nests were watched to see 

 how long incubation lasted, etc. In 

 eleven cases the second egg was laid 

 the second day after the first, four 

 cases three days elapsed, the other 

 six, the last egg was laid the day fol- 

 lowing the first. Incubation was start- 

 ed in most cases as soon as the last 

 egg had been laid. I noticed a few 

 however waited from one to two days, 

 never longer. The period of incuba- 

 tion was twenty-eight to twenty-nine 

 days, one case noted went thirty days, 

 this last however was one that was on 

 edge of my farm in a clump of palmet- 

 tces. and the birds were disturbed sev- 

 eral times a day by myself and others 



])assing near them. I enclose a photo- 

 graph of the young in this nest taken 

 when a few days old. One bird was 

 slightly larger than the other and the 

 chief occupation of this larger young- 

 ster was in trying to swallow his 

 smaller brother, the pleasing opei'a- 

 tion lasting as long as ten minutes at 

 a time. Life was made miserable for 

 these birds by the hundreds of 

 green flies, drawn to the nest 

 by the remnants of offal around. 

 I had aimed to take a series 

 of photographs of these youngsters up 

 to the time they could fly, but the nest 

 was situated in a clump of palmettoes 

 ten feet high and a person had to act- 

 ually get down inside the small clear- 

 ing where the young were and this 

 clearing was not six feet in diameter. 

 The reason I took but the one picture 

 was evident. Nature has endowed me 

 with a pretty good nose and a strong 

 stomach and they went on a strike 

 every time I got too near the young 

 beauties. However, 1 noted their 

 daily growth and they either flew 

 away or wandered off at the 

 age of six weeks. After they were 

 two weeks old the amount of material 

 these growing youngsters could assim- 

 ilate was prodigious. 



In the cities of the South this Vul- 

 . ture does real work and is the chief 

 worker of the sanitary department. 

 (In some of the smaller places they 

 are. actually the only ones.) They are 

 fully protected in this country and in 

 the cities and towns deserve it, but 

 out in the rural districts I have come 

 to the conclusion that they are harm- 

 ful owing to their great numbers. 

 One day while sitting in an Osprey 

 nest resting, 105 feet up in a little 

 cypress in another swamp, I counted 

 950 of these birds sitting around in 

 trees and countless numbers were 

 soaring about where ever the eye wan- 

 flered. 1 believe that 5000 of these 

 scavengers use this swamp as a Roost. 

 Where so many of these birds gather 

 together, the food supply is naturally 

 a serious question for them, and dead 

 food becoming scarce they are forced 

 to become birds of prey in every sense 

 of the word. Hundreds of young pigs, 

 lambs, etc., are annually devoured by 

 them and every stock breeders hand 

 is against them all the time. I have 

 had them to come into my yard and 

 catch young chickens. I will relate 



