20 THE VULTURE. 
pendous Mora tree* close by, whose topmost branch 
had either been dried by time or blasted by the 
thunder-storm. Upon this branch I killed the king 
of the vultures, before he had descended to partake 
of the savoury food which had attracted him to the 
place. Soon after this another king of the vultures 
came, and after he had stuffed himself almost to suf- 
focation, the rest pounced down upon the remains 
of the serpent, and stayed there till they had de- 
voured the last morsel. 
I think I mentioned in the Wanderings^ that I do 
not consider the Vultur Aura gregarious, properly 
so speaking ; and that I could never see it feeding 
upon that which was not putrid. Often when I had 
thrown aside the useless remains of birds and qua- 
drupeds after dissection, though the Vultur Aura 
would be soaring up and down all day long, still it 
would never descend to feed upon them, or to carry 
them off, till they were in a state of putrefaction. 
Let us here examine the actions of this vulture a 
little more minutely. If the Vultur Aura, which, 
as I have said above, I have never seen to prey upon 
living animals, be directed by its eye alone to the 
object of its food, by what means can it distinguish 
a dead animal from an animal asleep ? or how is it 
* " The Mora, in Guiana, is a lofty timber tree, the topmost branch of 
which, when naked with age, or dried by accident, is the favourite resort of 
the toucan. It also frequently happens, that a wild fig tree, as large as a 
::,ommon English apple tree, rears itself from one of the thick branches of 
the top of the Mora, and that numerous climbing epiphytes grow upon the 
fig tree. The fig tree, in time, kills the Mora, and the epiphytes the fig tree. 
The birds are the agents that convey the seeds to the rotten hollow stump 
or decaying bark of the Mora and fig." ( Waterton's Wanderings in South 
America^ Sfc.) 
