82 



THE OOLOGIST. 



said lieaser's Crow, (for that was the 

 man's name to whom it belonged,) had 

 stolen the money and flown away with 

 it So much for the Crow — but now 

 comes the funniest part of it, My 

 mother thought it was a queer story and, 

 when father came home, told him about 

 it. The next day he met the owner of 

 the Crow and jokingly told him about 

 it. It was perhaps a week later when 

 the man who owned the Crow stopjoed 

 my father on the street and saying he 

 had somethiug for him handed him a 

 silver dollar. 



The Crow had carried it two miles 

 across the fields to its home and had 

 dropped it in a rain barrel that stood 

 near the house. The man found it in 

 the morning wheu he went to wash. 

 R. Paul Hughes; 



Lima, Ohio. 



Notes on Cathartes Aura. 



The Turkey Vulture, or Turkey Buz- 

 zard, as it is commonly called, is an 

 abundant resident here, and seems 

 about, as numerous at one season as an- 

 other 



In this locality I think it has a decid- 

 ed preference for carrion, but in cold 

 weather, when food is scarce it will 

 eat fresh meat. They will sometimes, 

 in company with Crows, devour the 

 remainder of a chicken or rabbit killed 

 by a Hawk, as soon as the latter has 

 made his meal and left. 



Wh n a large animal dies, a hundred 

 a more individuals- will collect, di" lug 

 their time during the day, between eat- 

 ing and sitting on the nearest trees and 

 fences; and at night roosting in an ad- 

 jacent wood. 



When they first find a dead animal 

 they will examine it carefully, and if its 

 condition is not satisfactory -will leave, 

 and return later. After the discovery 

 of fresh meat, I think they will some- 

 times collect and wait for it to putrefy. 

 I once found one, in winter that from 



some cause was unable to tiy, and on 

 being caught it vomited something that 

 looked like wheat or timothy heads and 

 clay. (I was not anxious to examine it 

 closely.) I suppose extreme hunger 

 was the cause of its having recoursed to 

 this unnatural diet. 



When captured in a steel trap, a Buz- 

 zard, if approached will never show 

 tight, but will stick his head under his 

 body or wing and lie as if dead, The 

 only vocal sound I have heard them ut- 

 ter is a blow, sounding like that made 

 by a sitting Turkey hen when she is dis- 

 turbed. 



On May 22, 1890, Prof. J. H. Langille 

 and I ma'de an excursion to the Palux- 

 ent river in search of a Buzzard's nest. 

 We found it on the ground in a large 

 Chestnut stump, on a steep hillside a 

 short distanee from the river, where 

 there was a little oak timber and a 

 dense growth of laurel brush. It con- 

 taiued two young, apparently about 

 four days old, covered with white down, 

 but with the fore- parts 'of their heads 

 naked and black, and a bare strip down 

 the breast exposing a coal-black skin. 

 The old bird would not leave her young, 

 suffering herself to be pushed aside 

 with a stick . While we were there she 

 disgorged something which one of them 

 commenced eating. 1 visited the place 

 again June 1, and found the in consider- 

 ably larger, and partly covered with 

 black feathers. On July 22, they v ere 

 still in the nest, and did not look as if 

 they would leave it fur a week or two. 

 The parent bird was not found on the 

 nest when these subsequent visits were 

 made. Visiting the place on April 19, 

 '91, I took a set of two eggs, very slight- 

 ly incubated. 



On May 30, '91, my usual comparion 

 on collecting excursions, and I took a, 

 set of two eggs from a wooded hillsido 

 near the banks of the Patuxent, about 

 a quarter of a mile below the first nest. 

 They had been deposited on the ground 

 under an overhanging rock, and were 



