No. 2. 



REPORT UPON BIRDS COLLECTED ON THE SURVEY- 



BY A. L. HEERMA.NN, M. D. 



CATHARTES CALIFORNIANUS, Shaw.— The California Vulture. 



Cathartes calif ornianus, NuTTiLLs Ornithology, vol. I, p. 39. 



Audubon, Birds of America, Fol. pi 426 — Cabsin, Gen. Rep. P. R. R. IX, 1858, 5. 

 Cathartes californicas. Aid. Birds of America, Oct. vol. I, p. 12, pi. I. 

 Vultur ailifornianus, Shaw, Nat. Misc., vol. IX, pi. 301. 



This species, the largest which our western fauna possesses, was observed occasionally during 

 our survey sailing majestically in wide circles at a great height and ranging by its powers of 

 flight over an immense space of country in search of food. Whilst unsuccessfully hunting in 

 the Tejon valley, we have often passed several hours without a single one of this species being 

 in sight, but on bringing down any large game, ere the body had grown cold, these birds might 

 be seen rising above the horizon and slowly sweeping towards us, intent upon their share of the 

 prey. Nor in the absence of the hunter will his game be exempt from their ravenous appetite, 

 though it be carefully hidden and covered by shrubbery and heavy branches ; as I have known 

 these marauders to drag forth from its concealment and devour a deer within an hour. Any 

 article of clothing thrown over a carcass will shield it from the vulture, though not from the 

 grizzly bear, who little respects such flimsy protection. My coat, used on one occasion to cover 

 a deer, was found, on our return, torn by Bruin to shreds and the game destroyed. The California 

 vulture joins to his rapacity an immense muscular power, as a sample of which it will suffice 

 to state that I have known four of them, jointly, to drag off, over the space of two hundred 

 yards, the body of a young grizzly bear weigliing upwnrds of a hundred pounds. A nest of 

 this bird with young was discovered on the Tuolumnes river in a thicket, by some Indians who 

 were there sent in search of a horse thief. It was about eight feet back from the entrance of a 

 crevice in the rocks, completely surrounded and masked by thick under brush and trees and 

 composed of a few loose sticks thrown negligently together. The effluvium arising from the 

 vicinity was overpowering. We found two other nests of a like construction and similarly 

 situated ; one at the head of the Merced river and the other in the mountains near Warner's 

 ranche. From the latter nest the Indians yearly rob the young, and having duly prepared 

 them by long feeding, kill them at one of their great festivals. 



CATHARTES AURA, L i n n .—The Red-headed Turkey Vulture. 



Cathartes aura, Rich, and Swais, Faun. Bor. Amer. vol. II, p. 4. — Nuttall's Ornith.vol. I, p. 43. — Audubon, Birds 

 of Amer. Oct. vol. I, p. 15 ; pi. 2. — Cassis, Gen. Rep. IX, 6. 



This bird ranges over the whole extent of California, being met in great numbers in the 

 vicinity of Fort Yuma, at the junction of the Colorado and Gila rivers, and more especially on 



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