io8 WILD WINGS 



exclaiming, " Where 's my Barred Owl ! " All we could find 

 was a solitary feather. The hogs had eaten it, arsenic and 

 all, besides a Florida Duck and more or less of our pro- 

 visions. My friend consoled himself that there would be at 

 least one sick hog that day. Little satisfaction did he get ; 

 if the beast had been sick, it had evidently soon recovered, 

 for the usual precious band of nine paid us a visit early next 

 morning, hungry as ever, and eager for another breakfast on 

 luscious owl-skin with cotton dressing and arsenical sugar. 



The men who told us of the buzzard-roost wrongly sup- 

 posed that the birds nested in the trees, like the ibises. The 

 two handsomely blotched eggs of each pair are laid on the 

 ground, in such places as hollow logs or stumps, caves or 

 thickets. I was once shown an old circular stone slave-prison, 

 in South Carolina, where a Turkey Buzzard always nested. 

 Trees and shrubbery had grown around and concealed it, 

 and the roof had fallen in. Climbing in through a window 

 opening and scrambling down, I found plenty of buzzard 

 feathers and dirt in the thicket of weeds, but by this time 

 May the young scavengers had taken to wing and de- 

 parted. In another place, in North Carolina, another Turkey 

 Buzzard always was accustomed to nest in a certain old hol- 

 low stump, near a farmhouse. The owner of the land allowed 

 no one to disturb the brooding mother, and enjoyed seeing 

 her bristle up and strike, and hearing her hiss. The young 

 are interesting, and rather pretty, with their woolly white 

 suits. Neither old nor young can utter any sound save a low 

 guttural murmur, a little sort of gasp, and a prolonged hiss. 

 This muteness of the stalwart birds may not be inappropri- 

 ate, for it is their lot to live in the presence of death, where 

 it is fitting to keep silence, or to speak in whispers, with bated 

 breath. 



When I first journeyed South, I confess that I felt consid- 



