330 CATHARTES AURA. 



gather around our camps to feed upon the bodies of birds that we threw out to them. They 

 will also gather around the hunter when he shoots a deer in order to devour the intestines 

 which he usually removes on the spot. This brings me to a point which I wish to men- 

 tion, regarding Audubon's experiments upon these birds. For the benefit of those who 

 may not chance to be familiar with them, I will merely say that this distinguished author 

 had an idea that the Turkey Buzzards were deficient in the sense of smell, or at least, that 

 they were not guided to their food by this sense. To prove this, he covered the carcass of 

 a hog, or other animal, with brush or leaves and the Vultures would not trouble it although 

 they frequently passed over the spot, only a short distance above the ground. Now it is 

 a well-known fact with hunters in Florida, that whenever the body of an annual is cov- 

 ered ever so lightly with brush or leaves, it will never be disturbed by the Buzzards. I 

 have been a frequent witness to this and have, myself, seen the body of a freshly killed 

 deer left for hours with a few palmetto loaves laid over it, which only partly concealed it, 

 without it being troubled by the Vultures, although they gathered in such numbers as to 

 almost instantly devour the intestines which had been removed, then sat around on the 

 trees in the neighborhood with their hunger unappeased. Now there is but one way to 

 explain this singular abstinence on the part of birds which are usually so rapacious that 

 any meat left exposed is devoured very quickly. Whenever the puma (Fclis concolor) 

 leaves a portion of his food uneaten, he invariably covers it with a little grass, some leaves, 

 or other debris, that he can scratch over it. He then conceals himself near the spot and 

 watches the cache until he feels hungry. The remains of the feast are, as I have seen, 

 not entirely concealed upon such occasions but are only partly covered, just enough, how- 

 ever, to taboo it for other animals, and woe betide the helpless bird or beast who, impelled 

 by hunger, dares to break the puma's seal; he is so near that a single bound or two brings 

 him upon them, when they are fortunate if they escape with their lives. Turkey Buzzards 

 have some little sagacity, and instinctive, or inherited, sagacity is, as every naturalist 

 knows, the strongest; thus meat covered by a puma is not to be lightly meddled with, and 

 how are Turkey Buzzards, with their slight stock of wisdom, going to distinguish between 

 booty covered by a puma and that concealed no less clumsily by man? As the olfactory 

 nerves of these Vultures are as highly developed as these of other birds, I cannot avoid the 

 conclusion that they enjoy the sense of smell to an equal degree with other species, espe- 

 cially as nothing in my experience with them tends to show that they do not. 



Although the Red-headed Vultures congregate in great numbers in the vicinity of 

 cities, towns, and other settlements, they are also abundant in the wilder sections, where 

 they are generally much shyer than in localities in which they are protected. These Vul- 

 tures breed about the first of April in the more southern sections, and a little later further 

 north. The eggs are usually placed on the ground but, Captain Dummett informed me 

 that a pair nested for years on the top of the old Spanish lookout which stands on a small 

 island in the Mantanzas River near the inlet. These birds are generally distributed and 

 occur from Southern Pennsylvania to the extreme point of Florida and also on the Keys 

 but in this latter named locality they are not to be found in such numbers as on the 

 main-land. 



