258 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



will stand for hours together 011 the branch of a tree, or on 

 the top of a house, with his wings drooping, and, after rain, 

 with them spread and elevated to catch the rays of the 

 sun. It lias been remarked by naturalists, that the flight 

 of this bird is laborious. I have paid attention to the 

 vulture in Andalusia, and to those in Guiana, Brazil, and 

 the West Indies, and conclude that they are birds of long, 

 even, and lofty flight. Indeed, whoever has observed the 

 aura vulture, will be satisfied that his flight is wonderfully 

 majestic, and of long continuance. 



The bird is above five feet from wing to wing extended. 

 You will see it soaring aloft in the aerial expanse on 

 pinions which never flutter, and which at the same time 

 carry him through the fields of ether with a rapidity equal 

 to that of the golden eagle. In Paramaribo the laws pro- 

 tect the vulture, and the Spaniards of Angustura never 

 think of molesting him. In 1808, I saw the vultures in 

 that city as tame as domestic fowls ; a person who had 

 never seen a vulture would have taken them for turkeys. 

 They were very useful to the Spaniards ; and had it not 

 been for them, the refuse of the slaughter-houses in 

 Angustura would have caused an intolerable nuisance. 



The common black, short, square-tailed vulture, is gre- 

 garious ; but the aura vulture is not so ; for, though you 

 may see fifteen or twenty of them feeding on the dead 

 vermin in a cane-field, after the trash has been set fire to, 

 still, if you have paid attention to their arrival, you will 

 have observed that they came singly and retired singly, 

 and thus their being all together in the same field was 

 merely accidental, and caused by each one smelling the 

 effluvia as he was soaring through the sky to look out 

 for food. I have watched twenty come into a cane-field ; 

 they arrived one by one, and from different parts of 

 the heavens. Hence we may conclude, that though the 



