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 THE BLACK VULTURE OR CARRION CROW. 



CATHARTES JOTA, BONAP. 

 PLATE CVI. Male and Female. 



The habits of this species are so intimately connected with those of 

 the Turkey Buzzard {Catliartcs Aura), that I cannot do better than de- 

 vote this article to the description of both. And here, I beg leave to re- 

 quest of you, reader, that you allow me to present you with a copy of a 

 paper which I published several years ago on the subject, and which was 

 read, in my presence, to a numerous assemblage of the members of the 

 Wernerian Natural History Society of Edinburgh, by my friend Mr 

 Neill, the Secretary of that Society. It is scarcely necessary for me to 

 apologise for introducing here the observations which I then narrated, 

 more especially as they referred principally to an interesting subject of 

 discussion, which has been since resumed. They are as follows : — 



" As soon as, like me, you shall have seen the Turkey Buzzard follow, 

 with arduous closeness of investigation, the skirts of the forests, the 

 meanders of creeks and rivers, sweeping over the whole of extensive 

 plains, glancing his quick eye in all directions, with as much intentness 

 as ever did the noblest of Falcons, to discover where below him lies the 

 suitable prey ; when, like me, you have repeatedly seen that bird pass 

 over objects calculated to glut his voracious appetite, unnoticed, because 

 unseen ; and when you have also observed the greedy Vulture, propelled 

 by hunger, if not famine, moving like the wind suddenly round his 

 course, as the carrion attracts his eye ; then will you abandon the deeply- 

 rooted notion, that this bird possesses the faculty of discovering, by his 

 sense of smell, his prey at an immense distance. 



This power of smelling so acutely I adopted as a fact from my youth. 

 I had read of this when a child ; and many of the theorists, to whom I 

 subsequently spoke of it, repeated the same with enthusiasm, the more 

 particularly as they consideied it an extraordinary gift of nature. But 

 I had already observed, that nat'ire, although wonderfully bountiful, had 

 not granted more to any one individual than was necessary, and that no 

 one was possessed of any two of the senses in a very high state of pei'fec- 

 tion ; that if it had a good scent, it needed not so much acuteness of 



VOL. II. c 



