BLACK VULTURE. 5 
much more familiar in the towns than the preceding, delight- 
ing, during winter, to remain on the roofs of houses, catching 
the feeble rays of the sun, and stretching out their wings to ad- 
mit the warm air over their foetid bodies. When the weather 
becomes unusually chilly, or in the mornings, they may be 
seen basking upon the chimneys in the warm smoke, which, 
as well as the soot itself, can add no additional darkness or 
impurity to such filthy and melancholy spectres. Here, or on 
the limbs of some of the larger trees, they remain in listless 
indolence till aroused by the calls of hunger. 
Their flight is neither so easy nor so graceful as that of the 
“Turkey Buzzard. They flap their wings and then soar hori- 
zontally, renewing the motion of their pinions at short inter- 
vals. At times, however, they rise to considerable elevations. 
In the cities of Charleston and Savannah they are to be seen in 
numbers walking the streets with all the familiarity of domestic 
Fowls, examining the channels and accumulations of filth in 
order to glean up the offal or animal matter of any kind 
which may happen to be thrown out. They appeared to be 
very regular in their attendance around the shambles, and 
some of them become known by sight. This was particularly 
the case with an old veteran who hopped upon one foot 
(having by some accident lost the other), and had regularly 
appeared round the shambles to claim the bounty of the 
butchers for about twenty years. In the country, where I have 
surprised them feeding in the woods, they appeared rather shy 
and timorous, watching my movements alertly like Hawks ; 
and every now and then one or two of them, as they sat in 
the high boughs of a neighboring oak, communicated to the 
rest, as I slowly approached, a low bark of alarm, or wawgh, 
something like the suppressed growl of a puppy, at which the 
whole flock by degrees deserted the dead hog upon which 
they happened to be feeding. Sometimes they will collect 
together about one carcase to the number of two hundred 
and upwards; and the object, whatever it may be, is soon 
robed in living mourning, scarcely anything being visible but 
a dense mass of these sable scavengers, who may often be 
