THE SCAVENGERS 



about things after the second day. My 

 friend Ewan told me, among other things, 

 when he came back from San Juan Hill, 

 that not all the carnage of battle turned 

 his bowels as the sight of slant black wings 

 rising flockwise before the burial squad. 

 There are three kinds of noises buzzards 



make, — it is impossible to call them notes, 

 — raucous and elemental. There is a short 

 , croak of a larm, and the same syllable in a 

 modified tone to serve all the purposes of 

 ordinary conversation. The old birds make 

 a kind of throaty chuckling to their young, 

 but if they have any love song I have not 

 heard it. The young yawp in the nest a 

 little, with more breath than noise. It is 

 seldom one finds a buzzard's nest, seldom 

 that grown-ups find a nest of any sort ; it 

 is only children to whom these things hap- 

 pen by right. But by making a business 

 51 



