/ 664 TURKEY VULTURE. 
migrations to the Columbia, allured thither by the quantity of dead 
salmon which, at certain seasons, line the shores of that-river. 
They are numerous in the West India, islands, where they are said 
to be “ far inferior in size to those of North America.”* This-leads 
us to the inquiry, whether or not the present species has been -con- 
founded, by all the naturalists of Europe, with the Black Vulture, or 
Carrion Crow, which is so common in the southern parts of our conti- 
nent. If not, why has the latter been’ totally overlooked in the 
numerous ornithologies and nomenglatures with which the.world has 
been favored, when it is so conspicuous and remarkable, that no 
stranger visits South Carolina, Georgia, or the Spanish provinces, but 
is immediately struck with the novelty of its appearance ? | We can 
find no cause for the Turkey Buzzards of the islands{ being smaller 
than ours, and must conclude that the Carrion Crow, ‘which is of less 
size, has been mistaken for the former. In the history which follows, 
we shall endeavor to make it evident that the species described by 
Ulloa, as being so numerous in South America, is no other than the 
Black Vulture. The ornithologists of Europe, not aware of the ex- 
istence of a new species, have, without investigation, contented them- 
selves with the opinion that the bird, called by the above-mentioned 
traveller the Gallinazo, was the Vultur aura, the subject of our present 
history. This is the more inexcusable, as we expect in naturalists a 
precision of a different character from that which distinguishes vulgar 
observation. “If the Europeans had not the opportunity of- comparing 
living specimens of the two species, they at least-had preserved sub- 
jects, in their extensive and valuable museums, from which a correct 
judgment might have been formed. The figure in the Planches enlu- 
minées, though wretchedly drawn and colored, was evidently taken 
from a stuffed specimen of the Black Vulture. | 
Pennant observes, that the Turkey Vultures “are not found in the 
northern regions of Europe or Asia, at least in those latitudes which 
might give them a pretence of appearing there. I cannot find them,” 
he continues, “in our quarter of the globe, higher than the Grison 
Alps,t or Silesia,§ or at farthest Kalish, in Great Poland.” || 
Kolben, in his account of the Cape of Good Hope, mentions a 
Vulture, which he represents as very voracious and noxious. “I have 
seen,” says he, “many carcasses of cows, oxen, and other tame crea- 
tures, which the Eagles had slain. I say carcasses, but they were 
rather skeletons, the flesh and entrails being all devoured, and nothing 
remaining but the skin and bones. But the skin and bones being in 
* Penyvant, Arctic Zoology. 
+ The Vulture which Sir Hans Sloane has figured and described, and which he 
says is common in Jamaica, is undoubtedly the Vultur aura. “The head, and an 
inch in the neck, are bare, and without feathers, of a flesh. color, covered with a 
thin membrane, like that of Turkeys, with which the most part of the bill is covered 
likewise ; bill, below the membrane, more than an inch long, whitish at the point ; 
tail, broad, and nine inches long ; legs and feet, three inches long ; it flies exactly 
like a Kite, and pe on rea living; but when dead, it devours their car- 
casses, whence they are not mo ested.” — Sloane, Natural History of Jamaica, 
vol. ii. p. 294, folio. 
$} WiLLoveusy, Ornitholozy, p. 67. 
i ScHWENCKFELDT, Ar. Silesia, 375. 
Rzaczynsnzt, Hist. Nat. Poland, 298. 7 
SS 
