BLACK VULTURE. 41 



inclined to multiply as those more constantly resident in the forests, per- 

 ceiving the diminution of number during the breeding season, and having 

 remarked that many individuals known to me by particular marks made 

 on them, and a special cast of countenance, were positively constant resi- 

 dents of town. The Vidtur Aura is by no means so numerous as the 

 atratus. I have seldom seen more than from twenty-five to thirty to- 

 gether ; when, on the contrary, the latter are frequently associated to the 

 number of an hundred. 



The Vultur Aura is a more retired bird in habits, and more inclined to 

 feed on dead game, snakes, lizards, frogs, and the dead fish that frequently 

 are found about the sand-flats of rivers and borders of the sea-shore ; is 

 more cleanly in its appearance ; and, as you will see by the difference in 

 the drawings of both species, a neater and better formed bird. Its flight 

 is also vastly superior in softness and elegance, requiring but a few flaps 

 of its large wings to raise itself from the ground ; after which it will sail 

 for miles by merely turning either on one side or the other, and using its 

 tail so slowly, to alter its course, that a person looking at it, whilst 

 elevated and sailing, would be inclined to compare it to a machine fit to 

 perform just a certain description of evolutions. The noise made by the 

 vultures through the air, as they glide obliquely towards the earth, is 

 often as great as that of our largest hawks, when falling on their prey ; 

 but they never reach the ground in this manner, always checking when 

 about 100 yards high, and gmng several rotmds, to eaamine well the spot 

 they are about to aUght on. The Vultur Aura cannot bear cold weather 

 well ; the few who, during the heat of svimmer, extend their excursions to 

 the middle or northern states, generally return at the approach of winter ; 

 and I believe also, that very few of these birds breed east of the pine 

 swamps of New Jersey. They are much attached to particular roosting- 

 trees, and I know will come to them every night from a great distance. 

 On alighting on these, eacli of them, anxious for a choice of place, creates 

 always a general disturbance ; and often, when quite dark, their hissing is 

 heard in token of this inclination for supremacy. These roosting-trees of the 

 Buzzards are generally in deep swamps, and mostly in high dead cypress 

 trees ; frequently, however, they roost with the carrion crows {Vultur at- 

 tratiis), and then it is on the largest dead timber of our fields, not un- 

 frequently near the houses. Sometimes, also, this bird will roost close to 

 the body of a thickly leaved tree : in such a position I have killed several 



