TURKEY VULTURE. 665 
their natural places, the flesh being, as it were, scooped out, and the 
wound by which the Eagles enter the body being ever in the belly, 
you would not, till you had come up to the skeleton, have had the 
least suspicion that any such matter had happened. The Dutch at 
the Cape frequently call those Ragles, on account of their tearing out 
the entrails of beasts, slrunt-vogels, i.e. Dung-Birds. It frequently 
happens, that an ox that is freed from the plough, and left to find his 
way home, lies down to rest himself by the way ; and if he does so, it 
is a great chance but the Eagles fall upon him and devour him. 
They attack an ox or cow in a body consisting of a hundred and 
upwards,” * 
Buffon conjectures, that this murderons Vulture is the Turkey 
Buzzard, and concludes his history of the latter with the following 
invective against the whole fraternity : — “In every part of the globe 
they are voracious, slothful, offensive, and hateful, and, like the 
wolves, are as noxious during their life, as useless after their death.” 
If Kolben’s account of the ferocity of his Eagle,t or Vulture, be 
just, we do not hesitate to maintain that that Vulture is not the Turkey 
Buzzard, as, amongst the whole feathered creation, there is none, per- 
haps, more innoxious than this species ; and that it is beneficial to the 
inhabitants of our southern continent, even Buffon himself, on the 
authority of Desmarchais, asserts. But we doubt the truth of Kol- 
ben’s story ; and, in this place, must express our regret, that enlight- 
ened naturalists should so readily lend an ear to the romances of 
travellers, who, to excite astonishment, freely give currency to every 
ridiculous tale, which the designing or the credulous impose upon 
them. We will add farther, that the Turkey Buzzard seldom begins 
upon a carcass, until invited to the banquet by that odor, which in no 
ordinary degree renders it an object of delight. 
The Turkey Vulture is two feet anda half in length, and six feet 
two inches in breadth; the bill from the corner of the rhouth is 
almost two inches and a half long, of a dark horn color for somewhat 
more than an inch from the tip, the nostril a remarkably wide slit, or 
opening through it; the tongue is greatly concave, cartilaginous, and 
finely serrated on its edges ; ears, inclining to oval ; eyes, dark, in some 
specimens reddish hazel ; the head and neck, for about an inch and a half 
below the ears, are furnished with a reddish, wrinkled skin, beset with 
short, black hairs, which also cover the bill as far as the interior angle 
of the nostril, the neck not so much caruncled as that of the Black 
Vulture; from the hind head to the neck-feathers the space is covered 
with down of a sooty black color; the fore part of the neck is bare as 
far as the breast bone ; the skin on the lower part, or pouch, very much 
wrinkled; this naked skin is not discernible without removing the 
plumage which arches over it; the whole lower parts, lining of the 
wings, rump, and tail-coverts, are of a sooty brown, the feathers of 
the belly and vent, hairy ; the plumage of the neck is large and tumid, 
* Mepvry’s Iolben, vol. ii. p. 135. : 
t+ These bloodthirsty Eagles, we conjecture, are Black Vultures, they being tn 
the habit of mining into the bellies of dead animals, to feast upon the contents, 
With respect to their attacking those that are living, as the Vultures of America 
are not so heroic, it is a fair inference that the same species elsewhere is possessed 
of a similar disposition. 
56* 
