256 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 
The eggs are always two, and are usually laid on the bare ground, or on 
the chips and rubbish accumulated at the bottom of the hollow in which 
they are found, without any sign of a nest. They measure 2.74 by 1.89 
inches, and are usually buffy or greenish white, spotted and blotched with 
rich brown and purplish gray. The young are covered with white down, 
except the fore part of head, which is naked from the first. 
The food of the Turkey Buzzard is mainly carrion, but it also eats snakes, 
toads, and probably rats, mice, and occasionally young birds that chance 
to fall in its way. It does not, however, attack poultry or game birds, 
nor does it regularly search for and destroy the nests of other birds. On 
Fig. 68. Turkey Buzzard. Four weeks old. 
Photographed from life. From Bird Lore, by courtesy of Dr. Thomas H. Jackson. 
the whole it is a beneficial species and should be rigorously protected. On 
the wing it is one of the most graceful of birds and soars for hours at a time 
in fair weather, wheeling in endless circles high above the earth, always on 
the lookout for food. It is commonly believed to find its food through 
the sense of smell, but this has never been proved. It seems much more 
probable, from the evidence at hand, that it depends primarily upon sight, 
and the gathering of large numbers about some newly discovered food is 
due simply to the keen watch kept on each other, so that the motions of 
the discoverer are immediately noted by others at a distance, and when these 
stop circling and start toward the feast birds which are still farther away 
notice the unintentional signal and speed in the same direction. 
