323 Mr. H. E. Dresser on the Birds of Southern Texas. 



In the following list are some remarks bracketed and having 

 the letters "A. L. H. " appended. These are remarks made by 

 Dr. Heermann in pencil in my note-bookj which I cannot do 

 better than put in his own words. 



Cathartes AURA (Linnseus) . Turkey-Buzzard. 



One of the commonest birds throughout the country, particu- 

 larly about the roads on which cotton was being hauled to a 

 shipping-port, being lured thither by the quantities of dead 

 oxen and mules sti-ewn all along. Breeds all through the country, 

 where, on the banks of the streams, the timber grows sufficiently 

 thick to afford a secure shelter. I never succeeded in taking any 

 of its eggs, but was shown many nests on the banks of the 

 Medina, Attascosa, and San Antonio rivers, and have had the 

 eggs brought to me by the negroes and Mexican vaqueros. The 

 nests I have seen were large, bulky, composed of sticks, and 

 generally placed at some height on a cypress or an oak near 

 the river-bank. In hunting after Turkeys on the roost by 

 moonlight, I have often been deceived by these birds, which, in 

 the uncertain light, much resemble them. 



Cathartes atratus (Bartram). Black Vulture. 



On the lower Rio Grande I found this bird about equally 

 common with the preceding, but towards San Antonio much less 

 common. They are generally found in company, attended also 

 by Polyhorus tharus and Craxirex unicinctus. 



I had the eggs sent to me by a German from Systerdale, where 

 they were found in a nest made on the ground amongst some 

 rocks ; and the sender told me that there these Vultures seemed 

 to have it all to themselves, to the exclusion of the Red-headed 

 Vultures. Dr. Heermann took the eggs on the Attascosa River. I 

 have not the eggs here (they being, with most of my larger eggs, 

 still en route) ; but, so far as I recollect, they differed only from 

 those of the Turkey Buzzard in being somewhat smaller. 



Cathartes burrovianus, Cassin. Mexican Vulture. 



Dr. Heermann tells me that he noticed several of these birds at 

 a rancho several leagues from Brownsville. I myself also noticed 

 several small Vultures on the Palo Alto prairie, near Brownsville, 



