Turkey Bussard. 255 
great elevation, they cleave the ether in ever-widening circles, 
or sail on nearly horizontal wings, the tips being slightly 
raised, with steady, uniform motion. These aerial diversions, 
for such they seem to be, are never performed singly, but in 
small parties of a dozen or more, being more common in 
early spring, and at the close of the breeding-season, than at 
any other time. It is to be observed further that these 
movements are executed in silence, the only sounds which 
the Buzzards are capable of producing being a kind of hiss, 
which has not inaptly been compared to the seething noise 
emitted by plunging a hot iron in a vessel of water. 
When ready to breed these birds look about for a hollow 
tree, or some stump or log in a state of decay, either upon 
the ground, or slightly above it. Generally, there are no 
indications of a nest. In occasional instances a few rotten 
leaves, scratched into the hollow selected for the deposition 
of the eggs, constitute the nest, these treasures being laid 
without any previous care for their preservation and shelter 
being taken. In Southern New Jersey the nest has been 
inadvertently strayed upon in the midst of a deep and almost 
impenetrable morass, where it was found placed upon a hol- 
low stump. Within the rocky caverns along the wide, shallow 
Susquehanna, as many as a dozen nests have been counted 
in a few hundred yards of space, often as early as the last 
week of March in favorable seasons, but generally not till the 
middle of April. When the winters are not extremely rigor- 
ous, a few individuals remain in the vicinity of their breeding- 
quarters throughout the entire year. We have found the birds 
breeding in Delaware County, Pa., towards the latter part of 
April or the beginning of May, but in Philadelphia they 
rarely do, if they breed at all. In Southern Ohio they are 
a common summer sojourner. Speaking of the birds in 
Jamaica, Mr. Gosse says they nest in depressions in the 
rocks and in the ledges thereof, in retired localities and also 
upon inaccessible cliffs. On Galveston Island Audubon 
found the birds nesting in great numbers, either under 
