VULTURE LIFE 



WITH necks drawn down and shoulders thrown high, 

 and with limbs crouching in the constant but 

 vain endeavor to make their abbreviated, shingled 

 coats cover the roughened and reddened flesh of their naked 

 heads and at the same time hide from view their unshape- 

 ly bodies, generations of vultures have suffered from the in- 

 convenience and embarrassment entailed on them by the in- 

 decision of their primal father. Brevity of raiment is notice- 

 able in even the young vulture, though not so marked as in 

 the case of their elders. In youth, grayish, furry feathers 

 form a ruff and cap for the shrinking bird; but, for some 

 reason, these disappear on its arrival at maturity, when the 

 warty head shows ugly and bare. 



The gloomy cloak of the adult is not only too short at 

 the top, but at the bottom also, where it allows the -ungainly, 

 wrinkled feet to protrude below it in such a way that their 

 owner, as though ashamed and unwilling to expose them 

 more than is needful by walking after the manner of other 

 feathered creatures, must needs move from place to place, 

 when on the ground, in awkward jumps — a form of locomo- 

 tion more pronoimced in the black than in the turkey vulture. 

 With such a wardrobe and with such physical defects, is it 

 at all surprising that this bird shuns the main thoroughfares 

 and confines his urban wanderings to dumps and alleys? Is 



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