Turkey Buzzard. 255 



great elevation, they cleave the ether in ever-widening circles, 

 or sail on nearly horizontal wings, the tips being slightly 

 raised, with steady, uniform motion. These aerial diversions, 

 for such they seem to be, are never performed singly, but in 

 small parties of a dozen or more, being more common in 

 early spring, and at the close of the breeding-season, than at 

 any other time. It is to be observed further that these 

 movements are executed in silence, the only sounds which 

 the Buzzards are capable of producing being a kind of hiss, 

 which has not inaptly been compared to the seething noise 

 emitted by plunging a hot iron in a vessel of water. 



When ready to breed these birds look about for a hollow 

 tree, or some stump or log in a state of decay, either upon 

 the ground, or slightly above it. Generally, there are no 

 indications of a nest. In occasional instances a few rotten 

 leaves, scratched into the hollow selected for the deposition 

 of the eggs, constitute the nest, these treasures -being laid 

 without any previous care for their preservation and shelter 

 being taken. In Southern New Jersey the nest has been 

 inadvertently strayed upon in the midst of a deep and almost 

 impenetrable morass, where it was found placed upon a hol- 

 low stump. Within the rocky caverns along the wide, shallow 

 Susquehanna, as many as a dozen nests have been counted 

 in a few hundred yards of space, often as early as the last 

 week of March in favorable seasons, but generally not till the 

 middle of April. When the winters are not extremely rigor- 

 ous, a few individuals remain in the vicinity of their breeding- 

 quarters throughout the entire year. We have found the birds 

 breeding in Delaware County, Pa., towards the latter part of 

 April or the beginning of May, but in Philadelphia they 

 rarely do, if they breed at all. In Southern Ohio they are 

 a common summer sojourner. Speaking of the birds in 

 Jamaica, Mr. Gosse says they nest in depressions in the 

 rocks and in the ledges thereof, in retired localities and also 

 upon inaccessible cliffs. On Galveston Island Audubon 

 found the birds nesting in great numbers, either under 



