710 



Crea^ury at Natural ^ 



They are generally thought not to prey on 

 any thing living, though I have known them 

 kill lambs, and snakes are their usual food. 

 Their custom is to roost many of them to- 

 gether on tall dead pine or cypress trees, and 

 in the morning continue several hours on 

 their roost, with their wings spread open, 

 that the air, as I believe, may have the 

 greater influence to purify their filthy car- 

 casses. They are little apprehensive of 

 danger, and will suffer a near approach, es- 

 pecially when eating. 



In Mr. Darwin's Journal we read that 

 " the Turkey-buzzard is a solitary bird, or, 

 at most, goes in pairs. It may at once be 

 recognized from a long distance by its lofty, 

 soaring, and most elegant flight. It is well 

 known to be a true carrion-feeder. On the 

 west coast of Patagonia, among the thickly- 

 wooded islets and broken land, it lives ex- 

 clusively on what the sea throws up, and on 

 the carcasses of dead seals. Wherever these 

 animals are congregated on the rocks, there 

 the Vultures may be seen. . . . They cer- 

 tainly may be called gregarious, for they 

 seem to have pleasure in society, and are not 

 solely brought together by the attraction of 

 a common prey. On a fine day a flock may 

 be observed at a great height, each bird 

 wheeling round and round without closing 

 its wings, in the most graceful evolutions. 

 This is clearly done for sport sake, or per- 

 haps is connected with their matrimonial 

 alliances." 



This bird is also abundantly found in 

 Jamaica, where it goes by the name of the 

 John Crow Vulture. Its history is given in 

 Mr. Gosse's entertaining volume, from which 

 we shall make a few extracts. The first relates 

 to the disputed question of scent. " Those who 

 ascribe the power which the Vulture possesses 

 of discerning from a distance its carrion food, 

 to the sense of seeing or the sense of smell- 

 ing, exclusively, appear to me to be both in 

 error. It is the two senses, exerted some- 

 times singly, but generally unitedly, which 

 give the facility which it possesses of tracing 

 its appropriate food from far distances. I 

 shall relate one or two occurrences which 

 seem to me to be instances in which the sense 

 of seeing and the sense of smelling were some- 

 times separately and sometimes unitedly ex- 

 erted by the Vulture in quest for food. 



" A poor German immigrant, who lived 

 alone in a detached cottage in this town, 

 rose from his bed after a two days' confine- 

 ment by fever, to purchase in the market 

 some fresh meat for a little soup. Before he 

 could do more than prepare the several in- 

 gredients of herbs and roots, and put his 

 meat in water for the preparation of his 

 pottage, the paroxysm of fever had returned, 

 and he laid himself upon his bed exhausted. 

 Two days elapsed in this state of helpless- 

 ness and inanition ; by which time the mass 

 of meat and pot-herbs had putrefied. The 

 stench becoming very perceptible in the 

 neighbourhood, Vulture after Vulture as 

 they sailed past were observed always to de- 

 scend to the cottage of the German, and to 

 sweep round, as if they had tracked some 

 putrid carcass, but failed to find exactly 

 where it was. This led the neighbours to 



apprehend that the poor man lay dead in 

 his cottage, as no one had seen him for the 

 two days last past. His door was broken 

 open ; he was found in a state of helpless 

 feebleness, but the room was most insuffer- 

 ably offensive from something putrefying, 

 which could not immediately be found, for 

 the fever having deprived the German of his 

 wits, he had no recollection of his uncooked 

 mess of meat and herbs. No one imagining 

 that the kitchen pot could contain any thing 

 offensive, search was made every where but 

 in the right place : at last the pot-lid was 

 lifted, and the cause of the insupportable 

 stench discovered in the corrupted soup- 

 meat. Here we have the sense of smelling 

 directing the Vultures, without any assist- 

 ance from the sense of sight, and discovering 

 unerringly the locality of the putrid animal j 

 matter, when even the neighbours were at 

 fault in their patient search. ' 



The next instance is one in which the ' 

 senses of hearing, seeing, and smelling were ' 

 all exercised ; but not under the influence of j 

 the usual appetite for carrion food, but where j 

 the object was a living, though a wounded 

 animal. 



"A person in the neighbourhood of the 

 town, having his pastures much trespassed 

 on by vagrant hogs, resorted to his gun to 

 rid himself of the annoyance. A pig which 

 had been mortally wounded, and had run 

 squealing and trailing his blood through the 

 grass, had not gone far before it fell in the 

 agonies of death. At the moment the animal 

 was perceived to be unable to rise, three 

 Vultures at the same instant descended upon 

 it, attracted no doubt by the cries of the 

 I dying pig, and by the scent of its reeking 

 ! blood ; and while it was yet struggling for j 

 life, began to tear open its wounds and de- 

 vour it." Mr. Gosse further says, that " the ! 

 common opinion is erroneous, which attri- 

 butes to the Vulture a confinement of appe- ! 

 tite to flesh in a state of decomposition. , 

 Flesh is his food ; and that he does not 

 pounce upon living prey like the falcons, is 

 because his structure is not adapted for pre- 

 datory warfare, and not because he refuses 

 recent, and even living flesh when in his 

 power. If the John Crow Vulture discovers 

 a weakling new-born pig apart from the rest, 

 he will descend, and seizing it with his 

 beak, will endeavour to drag it away ; its 

 cries of course bring the mother, but before , 

 she can come, the Vulture gives it a severe 

 nip across the back, which soon ensures the ! 

 pig for his own maw. If a large hog be j 

 lying in a sick condition beneath a tree, the 

 Vulture will not hesitate to pick out its eyes, 

 having first muted upon the body, that it 

 may discover whether the animal be able to 

 rise ; the contact of the hot faeces arousing 

 the hog if he be not too far gone. Cattle 

 also he will attack under similar circum- 

 stances." 



" The Aura Vultures are often to be ob- 

 served soaring in companies, particularly 

 previous to a thunder-storm. This occur- 

 rence is commonly remarked, because at 

 almost all other times this species is seen 

 solitary, or, at most, scouring the country in 

 pairs. They appear to delight in the hurly- i 



