THE BLACK VULTURE. 17 



The most brilliant tints are, however, those of the naked skin of the head and neck. 

 " The throat and back of the neck," says Waterton, "are of a fine lemon color ; both sides of 

 the neck, from the ears downwards, of a rich scarlet ; behind the corrugated part there is 

 a white spot. The crown of the head is scarlet, betwixt the lower mandible and the eye, and 

 close by the ear, there is a part which has a fine silvery -blue appearance. Just above the 

 white spot a portion of the skin is blue, and the rest scarlet ; the skin which juts out behind 

 the neck, and appears like an oblong caruncle, is blue in part, and part orange. The bill is 

 orange and black, the caruncles on the forehead orange, and the cere orange, the orbits scarlet, 

 and the irides white." 



These gorgeous tints belong only to the adult bird of four years old, and in the previous 

 years of its life the colors are very obscure. In the first year, for example, the general color 

 is deep blue-gray, the abdomen white, and the crest hardly distinguishable either for its color 

 or its size. In the second year of its age the plumage of the bird is nearly black, diversified 

 with white spots, and the naked portions of the head and neck are violet-black, interspersed 

 with a few dashes of yellow. The third year gives the bird a very near approach to the beauti- 

 ful satin fawn of the adult plumage, the back being nearly of the same hue as that of the four- 

 year old bird, but -marked with many of the blue-black feathers of the second year. .When 

 full grown, the King Vulture is about the size of an ordinary goose. 



ALL the Sarcorhamphidse are natives of Ameiica, some of them, such as the condor and 

 the king vulture, being comparatively scarce, while others are so common that they swarm like 

 sparrows in our streets. One of the commonest of these useful but repulsive birds is the BLACK' 

 VULTURE, ZOPILOTE, or URUBU, which together with the turkey buzzard and the Californian 

 Vulture are placed in one genus, termed, characteristically of their habits, Catharista, or 

 Cleanser. 



The Black Vulture bears so close a resemblance to the turkey buzzard that it has often 

 been confounded with that bird by superficial observers. It may, however, be readily distin- 

 guished by the shape of the feathers round its neck, which in the turkey buzzard form a cir- 

 cular ring completely round the throat, while in the Black Vulture they descend from the 

 back of the head towards the throat in a sloping direction. The shape of the bill is more 

 slender, and the nostrils not so rounded as in the turkey buzzard. The general color of the 

 Black Vulture is a dull black ; the primaries are, however, rather white on the inside, and 

 their shafts are also white. The head and part of the neck are devoid of feathers, and covered 

 with a black wrinkled skin sparely furnished with short scattered black hairs in front, and 

 down behind. The throat has a wash of ocherous yellow. The length of the bird is rather 

 more than two feet, and the expanse of its wings is about four feet four inches. 



It is a high-flying bird, sweeping through the air with a beautifully easy flight, and often 

 accompanied by the Mississippi kite, which seems to be drawn towards the Zopilote by some 

 common feeling. After the bird has been gorging itself with the putrid meat which it so loves, 

 it gives forth a most horrible stench. But after it has fasted for some time, the unpleasant 

 odor nearly vanishes ; and even when the body of the bird is laid open, the only scent which 

 it exhales is a rather strong musky perfume. 



The predaceous birds are like the predaceous beasts, possessed of most powerful appetites, 

 being capable of eating and digesting an amount of food which is perfectly astonishing. As, 

 however, they cannot hope for a constant supply of nourishment, they are gifted with the 

 capability of enduring hunger for a very long time without appearing to siiffer very severely 

 from their protracted fast. When in search of food, the Zopilote ascends to a vast height in the 

 air, rising indeed to so great an elevation, that it can hardly be distinguished as a black speck, 

 even when the attention of a spectator is drawn towards the bird, and is entirely invisible 

 to those who are not intent upon distinguishing the gnat-like object as it floats about in the 

 upper air. 



Every one of these birds is, notwithstanding the enormous height at which it is poised, 

 intently watching the ground in hopes of marking out some dying animal on which it may 

 swoop, and hasten its death by the injuries which it inflicts upon the unresisting creature. 



VOL. II. 3. 



