100 TURKEY VULTURE. 



preserved subjects, in their extensiv^e and valuable museums, from 

 which a correct judgment might have been formed. The figure 

 in the Planches enluminees^ though wretchedly drawn and colored, 

 was evidently taken from a stuffed specimen of the Black Vulture. 



Pennant observes that the Turkey Vultures are not found 

 in the northern regions of Europe or Asia, at least in those lati- 

 tudes which might give them a pretence of appearing there. ^' " I 

 cannot find them,^' he continues, " in our quarter of the globe 

 higher than the Grison Alps^^ or Silesiayf or at farthest Kalishy in 

 Great PolandJ'X 



Kolben, in his account of the Cape of Good-Hope, mentions 

 a Vulture, which he represents as very voracious and noxious: 

 " I have seen,^' says he, " many carcasses of cows, oxen, and other 

 tame creatures which the Eagles had slain. I say carcasses, but 

 they were rather skeletons, the flesh and entrails being all devour- 

 ed, and nothing remaining but the skin and bones. But the skin 

 and bones being in their natural places, the flesh being, as it 

 were, scooped out, and the wound by which the Eagles enter the 

 body being ever in the belly, you would not, till you had come 

 up to the skeleton, have had the least suspicion that any such 

 matter had happened. The Dutch at the Cape frequently call 

 those Eagles, on account of their tearing out the entrails of beasts, 

 Strunt-Fogels i. e. Dung-birds. It frequently happens, that an ox 

 that is freed from the plough, and left to find his way home, lies 

 down to rest himself by the way ; and if he does so, 'tis a great 

 chance but the Eagles fall upon him and devour him. They 

 attack an ox or cow in a body, consisting of an hundred and 

 upwards. "§ 



BufFon conjectures that this murderous Vulture is the Tur- 

 key-buzzard, and concludes his history of the latter with the 



* Willughby, Orn. p. 67. f Schwenckfeldt, av. Silesia, 375. 



\ Ezaczynskij Hist. Nat. Poland, 298. § Medley's Kolben, vol. ii, p. 135, 



