/ 



TURKEY VULTURE. 99 



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 no the present species has 

 been confounded, by all the naturalists of Europe, with the Black 

 Vulture, or Carrion-crow, which is so common in the southern 

 parts of our continent. If not, why has the latter been totally 

 overlooked in the numerous Ornithologies and Nomenclatures 

 with which the world has been favored, when it is so conspicuous 

 and remarkable, that no stranger who visits South Carolina, Geor- 

 gia^ or the Spanish provinces, but is immediately struck with the 

 novelty of its appearance ? We can find no cause for the Tur- 

 key-buzzards of the islandst 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 UUoa, 

 as being so numerous in South America, is no other than the Black 

 Vulture. The ornithologists of Europe, not aware of the existence 

 of a new species, have, without investigation, contented themselves 

 with the opinion, that the bird called by the above mentioned tra- 

 veller 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 



Pennant, Arctic Zoology, 

 f The Vultui'e which Sir Hans Sloane has figured and described, and which he says is common 

 in Jamaica, is undoubtedly the Vnliuv aura : " The head and an inch in the neck are bare and with- 

 out feathers, of a flesh color, covered with a thin membrane, like that of Turkies, with which the most 

 part of the bill is covered likewise,- bill (below the membrane) more than an inch long, wliitish at the 

 point tail broad and nine inches long ; legs and feet three inches long ; it flies exactly like a Kite, 

 and preys on nothing limng, but when dead it devours their carcasses, whence they are not molested." 

 Sk>aoe, Nat. Hist. Jam. vol. ii, p. 29i, folio. 



