TURKEY VULTURE. 133 
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,* 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, perhaps, more innoxious than this species ; and 
that it is beneficial to the inhabitants of our southern conti- 
nent, even Buffon himself, on the authority of Desmarchais, 
asserts. But we doubt the truth of Kolben’s story ; and, in 
this place, must express our regret that enlightened natural- 
ists 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 further, that the turkey buzzard 
seldom begins upon a carcass until invited to the banquet by 
that odour which in no ordinary degree renders it an object 
of delight. 
The turkey vulture is two feet and a half in length, and six 
feet two inches in breadth; the bill from the corner of the 
mouth is almost two inches and a half long, of a dark horn 
colour 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 
* These bloodthirsty eagles, we conjecture, are black vultures, they 
being in 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. 
