110 STORIES OF BIRD LIFE 



alligator. Sluggishly raising his head a foot or more he 

 looked toward me. In an instant out came my revolver 

 and I at once began to drop lead into the mud about him. 

 Not until the pistol reports rang out did the two vultures 

 quit the palmetto top. When a short time afterward the 

 horse was once more on solid ground, and the alligator 

 was swimming quietly along out in the deep water, not a 

 vulture was to be seen, for although they revel in odors 

 produced by putrefaction, no southern vulture can endure 

 the scent of burnt powder. 



The favorite nesting place of the black vulture is on the 

 ground among the palmettos or reeds of some inaccessible 

 Lwamp. Sometimes the nest is so well concealed that it 

 can be approached only along the runway which the birds 

 make for many yards under overhanging vines and briers. 

 The young when first hatched are black. 



Vultures often congregate at some popular roosting 

 place in large numbers. I know of one such roost in a 

 cypress swamp toward which a short time before sunset 

 the birds begin to come from all points of the compass. 

 They are prone to circle about for a time before alighting. 

 They perch on the larger limbs of the trees, often several 

 on one limb, but never sitting close nor crowding each 

 other. Soon after dawn they begin to leave the roost, and 

 as a rule fly directly away. The turkey vultures, singly or 



