THE TURKEY BUZZARD. 171 



into the fields and woods, far from the noise of city 

 life, and where no sound is heard but the ceaseless 

 voice of Nature. Here we shall see the birds in all 

 their native beauty, not as we see the stuffed mum- 

 mies in our cabinets, but as free tenants of the air, 

 enjoying all the life and liberty in which they were 

 created. It is a warm, bright morning of Summer ; 

 the sultry air teems with the fragrant odors of the 

 hay-fields ; the sweet warblers which early sang their 

 notes from the neighboring grove have retired to the 

 deep and cooling shelter of the forest. We seek the 

 shade of some wide-spreading oak, where we may sit 

 down and observe what is passing around us. If we 

 turn our eyes upward, we will probably see four or 

 five dark-looking objects, apparently like crows, sail- 

 ing in easy circles, or floating about in graceful curves, 

 sometimes dashing ofi' with impetuous velocity, or 

 mounting high in the air, until almost lost to view, 

 their varied motions being performed without any 

 further apparent efibrt of the wings than a few flaps. 

 These are the Turkey Buzzards, and if one of them 

 should pass before us upon the ground, we would 

 scarcely suspect so awkward, unsightly, heavy and 

 inanimate a looking object, could be so free and 

 graceful upon the wing; and if we should see him 

 thrust his head and neck into the mangled corpse 

 of some poor old horse which had just fallen a prey 

 to the stroke of death, we should be still more dis- 

 gusted with his unmannerly behavior. But how- 

 ever justly we may censure him for his uncouth ap- 

 pearance and his filthy habits, he is nevertheless one 



