236 THE ARABIAN VULTURE. 
wattles of the turkey. This bird is chiefly found in North America, but is 
also an inhabitant of Jamaica, where it is popularly known as the John Crow. 
The nest of the Turkey Buzzard is a very inartistical affair, consisting 
merely of some suitable hollow tree or decayed log, in which there may be a 
depression of sufficient depth to contain the eggs. In this simple cradle the 
female deposits from two to four eggs, which are of a dull cream-white, 
blotched with irregular chocolate splashes, which seem to congregate 
towards the largest end. The young birds are covered with a plentiful 
supply of white down. 
The adult Turkey Buzzard 
is rather a large bird, mea- 
suring two feet six inches in 
length, and six feet ten 
inches across the expanded. 
wings. The weight is about 
five pounds. The general 
colour of the plumage is 
black, mingled with brown, 
the secondaries being slight- 
ly tipped with white, and a 
few of the coverts edged with 
the same tint. On the neck, 
the back, the shoulders, and 
the scapularies, the black 
hue is shot with bronze, 
green, and purple. Beneath 
the thick plumage is a light 
coating of soft white down, 
which apparently serves to 
preserve the creature at a 
proper temperature. The 
bare skin of the neck is not 
as wrinkled as in several 
Vultures, and the feathers 
make a complete ring round 
the neck. There is but little 
difference in the plumage of 
the two sexes, but the bill 
of the male is pure white. 
TURKEY BUZZARD.—(Catharista Aura.) WE now arriveat the true 
Vultures, the best known of 
which is the common ARABIAN VULTURE, a bird which is spread over a very 
large portion of the globe, being found in various parts of Europe, Asia and 
Africa, 
It is a large bird, measuring nearly four feet in length, and the expansion 
of its wings being proportionately wide. The general colour of this species 
is a chocolate brown, the naked portions of the neck and head are of a 
bluish hue, and it is specially notable for a tuft of long soft feathers which 
spring from the insertion of the wings. In spite of its large size and great 
muscular powers, the Arabian Vulture is not a dangerous neighbour even to 
the farmer, for unless it is pressed by severe hunger, it seems rather to have 
a dread of living animals, and contents itself with feeding on any carrion 
which may come in its way. Sometimes, however, after a protracted fast, its 
fears are overruled by its hunger, and the bird makes a raid upon the sheep- 
folds or the goat-flocks, in the hope cf carrying off a tender lamb or kid. 
