24 BLACK VULTURE. 



houses are covered with them. They are very serviceable, in 

 cleansing the city of all its animal impurities. There are few 

 animals killed whereof they do not obtain the offals; and when 

 this food is wanting, they have recourse to other filth. Their 

 sense of smelling is so acute, that it enables them to trace car- 

 rion at the distance of three or four leagues; which they do not 

 abandon until there remains nothing but the skeleton. 



" The great number of these birds found in such hot climates, 

 is an excellent provision of nature; as otherwise, the putrefac- 

 tion caused by the constant and excessive heat, would render 

 the air insupportable to human life. When first they take wing, 

 they fly heavily; but afterwards they rise so high as to be en- 

 tirely invisible. On the ground they walk sluggishly. Their 

 legs are well proportioned; they have three toes forward, turning 

 inwards, and one in the inside, inclining a little backwards, so 

 that the feet interfering, they cannot walk with any agility, 

 but are obliged to hop; each toe is furnished with a long and 

 stout claw. 



"When the Gallinazos are deprived of carrion, or food in 

 the city, they are driven by hunger among the cattle of the 

 pastures. If they see a beast with a sore on the back, they alight 

 on it, and attack the part affected ; and it avails not that the 

 poor animal throws itself upon the ground, and endeavours to 

 intimidate them with its bellowing: they do not quit their 

 hold!* and by means of their bill they so soon enlarge the 

 wound, that the animal finally becomes their prey."t 



The account, from the same author, of the beneficial effects 

 resulting from the fondness of the vultures for the eggs of the 

 alligator, merits attention. 



* The faculty of prehension, which is possessed, in a remarkable degree, 

 by the whole of the Falco tribe, but slightly appertains to Vultures, as is evi- 

 denced by their feet and claws; hence all the stories which are related, of 

 their seizing upon their prey, and bearing it off in their talons, are apocry- 

 phal. We would extend this remark to the far-famed Condor, whose history 

 has been embellished with feats of strength, not a little allied to the marvellous. 



t Voyage Historique De L'Amerique Meridionale, par Don George Juan, 

 et Don Antoine De Ulloa, liv. I, chap, viii, p. 52. A Amsterdam et a Leip- 

 zig, 1752, quarto. 



