BLACK VULTURE. 5 



much more familiar in the towns than the preceding, dehght- 

 ing, during winter, to remain on the roofs of houses, catching 

 the feeble rays of the sun, and stretching out their wings to ad- 

 mit the warm air over their foetid bodies. When the weather 

 becomes unusually chilly, or in the mornings, they may be 

 seen basking upon the chimneys in the warm smoke, which, 

 as well as the soot itself, can add no additional darkness or 

 impurity to such filthy and melancholy spectres. Here, or on 

 the limbs of some of the larger trees, they remain in listless 

 indolence till aroused by the calls of hunger. 



Their flight is neither so easy nor so graceful as that of the 

 Turkey Buzzard. They flap their wings and then soar hori- 

 zontally, renewing the motion of their pinions at short inter- 

 vals. At times, however, they rise to considerable elevations. 

 In the cities of Charleston and Savannah they are to be seen in 

 numbers walking the streets with all the familiarity of domestic 

 Fowls, examining the channels and accumulations of filth in 

 order to glean up the offal or animal matter of any kind 

 which may happen to be thrown out. They appeared to be 

 very regular in their attendance around the shambles, and 

 some of them become known by sight. This was particularly 

 the case with an old veteran who hopped upon one foot 

 (having by some accident lost the other), and had regularly 

 appeared round the shambles to claim the bounty of the 

 butchers for about twenty years. In the country, where I have 

 surprised them feeding in the woods, they appeared rather shy 

 and timorous, watching my movements alertly like Hawks ; 

 and every now and then one or two of them, as they sat in 

 the high boughs of a neighboring oak, communicated to the 

 rest, as I slowly approached, a low bark of alarm, or waugh, 

 something like the suppressed growl of a puppy, at which the 

 whole flock by degrees deserted the dead hog upon which 

 they happened to be feeding. Sometimes they will collect 

 together about one carcase to the number of two hundred 

 and upwards ; and the object, whatever it may be, is soon 

 robed in living mourning, scarcely anything being visible but 

 a dense mass of these sable scavengers, who may often be 



