892 J A M A 1 C A. 



In the country parts they eat dead lizards, fnakes, rats, or any 

 other putrid fledi, without feeming to prefer one fpecies more than 

 another. Sometimes they are known (when hunger prefles, and 

 their cuftomary food is fcarce) to fnap up a young chicken, or 

 duckling, juft hatched. 



They make no neft, butdepofite their eggs (which rarely, if ever, 

 exceed two) under fome rock, or in a iblitary part of the woods. 



The cock birds frequently tread the hen poultry. When this 

 happens, the gills of the hen turn gradually black, and look as if 

 they were in a ftate of mortification. She declines, lickens, and 

 is fure to die very foon after. Whence it feems probable, that the 

 leminal fluid of thefe birds has Ibmething in it extrremely acrimo- 

 nious, and even poifonous to the female organs of a different ^w«/. 

 It may partake of the purulence and mephitic quality of their food, 

 and bring on a mortification. 



A peifon, intending to play a trick upon one of his acquain- 

 tance, caufed a carrion-crow to be plucked, roafteJ, and ferved-up 

 at table ; but the flefli was fo black, and the flench lb intolerably 

 offenlive, that it was impoflible to pals the deception upon any man 

 who had not entirely lort his faculties of hght and fmell. 



There is fomething extremely remark.ible in regard to theTe 

 birds ; but it has been obferved ib repeatedly, that it may be deemed 

 a charafteriflic. They cannot bear to be looked at, efpecially after 

 they are gorged with carrion: they baiig down their heads to the 

 very ground, and feem as if afliamed of their filthy office, or of 

 their Immoderate gluttony. Dogs, who have gorged themfelves 

 with the fame dainty food, have often the fame abalhed, down- 

 cart: look, when caught in the facl ; and I do not queftion, but 

 this emotion, the refult of inftinft, is defigned to convey a moral 

 Icrtbn to man, and fhew, in the pidure exhibited by thefe ani- 

 mals, that fuch a voracious indulgence is equally odious and de- 

 grading. 



The foft down under the wings, or taken from the young birds, 

 who are perfe>5lly white, is uleful for flopping the blood in frefh 

 wounds. 



337' ^^^' 



