AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



DIV. I. AVES TERRESTRES. LAND BIRDS. 



ORDER!. ACCIPITRES. RAPACIOUS. 



Genus I. VULTUR.* VULTURES. 



Species I. VULTUR AURA. 



TURKEY VULTURE, or TURKEY-BUZZARD. 



[Plate LXXV. Fig. 1.] 



Vultur aura, Linn. Syst. ed. 10, torn, i., p. 86, 4 — Ind. Orn. p. 4, No. 8 — Vieillot, 

 Ois. de I'Am. Sept. i., p. 25, pi. 2, bis. — Carrion Crow, Sloane, Jam. u., p. 294, 

 tab. 254. — Carrion Vulture, Lath. Gen. Syn. i., p. 9. — Le Vautour du Br4sil, 

 Briss. I., p. 468. — Turkey-Buzzard, Catesbt, Car. i., p. 6. — Bartram's Travels, 

 p. 289. — Cozcaquaauhtti, Olavigero, Hist. Mex. i., p. 47, English translation. — 

 American Vulture, Shaw, Gen. Zool. vii., p. 36. 



This species is well known throughout the United States, but is most 

 numerous in the southern section of the union. In the northern and 

 middle states it is partially migratory, the greater part retiring to the 

 south on the approach of cold weather. But numbers remain all the 

 winter in Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey; particularly in the 

 vicinity of the large rivers, and the ocean, which afford a supply of food 

 at all seasons. 



In New Jersey,t the Turkey-buzzard hatches in May, the deep re- 

 cesses of the solitary swamps of that state affording situations well suited 



* This genus has been divided into several genera, by modern ornithologists. 

 Temminck adopts the four following : 1. Vultur. (lUiger). 2. CatTiartes. (lUiger). 

 3. Gypaetus. (Storr). 4. Gypogeranus. (IlUger). The two following species 

 belong to the second of these, the genus Cathartes of lUiger. No true Vulture in 

 the present restricted acceptation of that genus has been found in America. 



t The author mentions New Jersey in particular, as in that state he has visited 

 the breeding places of the Turkey-buzzard, and can therefore speak with certainty 

 of the fact. Pennsylvania, it is more than probable, affords situations equally 

 attractive, which are also tenanted by this Vulture, for hatching and rearing its 

 young. 



