108 



BLACK VULTURE 



is surrounded with a wrinkled, glandulous, and rough skin, which 

 forms numerous warts, and other similar inequalities. This skin 

 is blacky as is the plumage of the bird, but usually of a brownish 

 black. The bill is well proportioned, strong, and a little hooked. 

 These birds are familiar in Carthagena, the tops of the houses are 

 covered with them ; it is them which cleanses the city of all its 

 animal impurities. There are few animals killed whereof they 

 do not obtain the offals; and when this food is wanting, they have 

 recourse to other filth. Their sense of smelling is so acute, that 

 it enables them to trace carrion at the distance of three or four 

 leagues ; which they do not abandon until there remains nothing 

 but the skeleton. 



" The great number of these birds found in such hot climates, 

 is an excellent provision of nature; as otherwise, the putrefaction 

 caused by the constant and excessive heat, would render the air 

 insupportable to human life. When first they take wing they fly 

 heavily ; but afterwards they rise so high as to be entirely invisi- 

 ble. On the ground they walk sluggishly. Their legs are well 

 proportioned; they have three toes forward, turning inwards, and 

 one in the inside, inclining a little backwards, so that the feet in- 

 terfering, they cannot walk with any agility, but are obliged to 

 hop ; each toe is furnished with a long and stout claw. 



" When the Gallinazos are deprived of carrion, or food in the 

 city, they are driven by hunger among the cattle of the pastures. 

 If they see a beast with a sore on the back, they alight on it, and 

 attack the part affected ; and it avails not that the poor animal 

 thi'oxvs itself upon the ground^ and endeavours to intimidate them 

 by its bellowing : they do not quit their hold! and by means of their 

 bill they so soon enlarge the wound, that the animal finally be- 

 comes their prey.^'* 



^ A^oyage Historiqiie Be L'Amerique Meritlionale, par Don George Juan et Don Antoine De 

 UUoa, liv. I, chap, viii, p. 52. A Amsterdam et a Leipzig, 1752, quarto. 



