398 
Turkey Vulture 
Waiting 
for 
Death 
They are,. most useful birds as scavengers. They quickly find and 
consume with equal avidity the dead snake by the roadside, the trapped 
rat thrown out from the barn, or the deceased hog in the pasture. They 
eat dead fish left on the sea-beaches, and I once saw one feeding on 
the floating body of an alligator. In many of the southern states, where 
no laws exist requiring cattle owners to fence in their stock, cows 
are constantly killed by railroad locomotives and as one passes such 
spots on the train it is a common sight to see Turkey Buzzards and 
Black Vultures rise from their feast and flap up to the limbs of the 
neighboring trees. When the planter loses a horse by death the body 
is dragged off into the woods and left. Two or three days later only 
bones and trampled grass mark the last resting place of the departed 
beast of burden. 
In many a southern city the Vultures constitute a most effective 
street-cleaning department, and the garbage piles on the city’s dump 
heaps are swept and purified by them. When the rancher of the West 
dresses cattle, for home consumption or the market, his dusky friends 
in feathers gladly save him the trouble of burying the offal. 
These Vultures at times anticipate the death of an animal and 
gather about it while waiting the appointed hour. While working in 
a most forbidden morass deep in a Florida swamp the writer on one 
occasion came upon a striking example of this custom which these birds 
possess. Progress was slow and it was impos- 
sible to advance only with the greatest care and 
springing from clump to clump of palmetto roots. 
Between these supports the mud seemed to be 
fathomless. Here in these forbidden surroundings I came upon a cow 
sunk into the mud to a line half way up her body. Her condition was 
absolutely hopeless and so exhausted had she become she was scarcely 
able to move her head. 
On trees and bushes on all sides and above her Turkey Buzzards 
and Black Vultures were perched to the number of fifteen or twenty. 
Two of them were standing on palmetto clumps but a few feet from 
her head. There was no possible way of saving the doomed animal — 
the Vultures were sure of their banquet. 
I recall a certain slaughter pen in a little rural community where 
twice a week a beeve was butchered, and the meat immediately sold to 
the people of the surrounding country. The killing took place every 
Wednesday and Saturday afternoon. A group of Vultures were always 
present sitting around in the trees and waiting for the butchers to 
depart with the hide and flesh. The refuse was always left for them. 
Turkey Buzzards are fond of gathering about pens where hogs are 
fed, where a certain amount of scraps of food fall to their share. 
The birds may be seen perched here all hours of the day, sometimes 
with wings expanded as if for the purpose of allowing the sun’s rays 
to purify their feathers. They feed almost entirely on the ground, 
although occasionally they will carry some choice morsel to a less public 
spot to eat it. Their feet are not well adapted to holding their food 
and eating it while standing on a limb of a tree or other narrow perch, 
but at times they do eat on the top of a stump or the roof of some 
building. 
One day a lady of my acquaintance while sitting alone in her room 
