

The Turkey 

 Vulture 



\-A 





***fli 



Taken in Kern County 



THE BUZZARDRY 

 A WONDERFUL CARPET OF BLUE FLOWERS LEADS UP TO THIS APARTMENT HOUSE FOR VULTURES 



Photo by the Author 



IN THE FOG-BELT, the Vulture's day may not begin before eight 

 or nine o'clock in the morning, but once a-wing our sable hero enters upon 

 a quest the most active and tireless, the most patient, and the most 

 often unrewarded, of any which mortals know. Eternal hunger is a-wing, 

 and when the Buzzard sweeps low to bend upon you an inquiring eye, 

 you shudder. The passing shape casts a shadow as of death, and it is 

 really the grave which appraises you in that deferential, hopeful gaze. 

 But do not be dismayed ! It is a gentle ghoul. He has not in himself the 

 power of death for so much as a toad; and as for death's debris, why 

 should not our thrifty mother feed her other children at our expense, 

 if we are careless enough to get left around? 



It is as an aviator rather than as a sexton, however, that one should 

 think of the Turkey Vulture. His performances in the air are such as to 

 awaken unqualified enthusiasm ; and it is interesting to note in this con- 

 nection that Cathartes aura, the species, is the oldest living performer 

 among that highly specialized group of stars, the Cathartidce. While 

 he did not actually invent the heavier-than-air machine — gracious, no! — 

 the Turkey Vulture was calmly practicing the aviator's art at least half 

 a million years before the Wright Brothers waxed ambitious. No wonder, 

 then, that he is such an adept, or that his more adaptable type of "ma- 

 chine" has witnessed the downfall of half a dozen earlier models, — Cath- 

 arista shastensis Miller, Gymnogyps amplus, and the rest. No more 

 interesting chapter, by the way, has ever been written in avian paleon- 

 tology than that brought to light by Professor Loye Holmes Miller, of 

 Los Angeles. This gifted investigator finds that at least eight species 

 of Vultures have at one time or another inhabited California, and that 

 Cathartes aura was contemporaneous with the oldest of them. Our sable 



1737 



