234 
ORDERS OF BIRDS— BIRDS OF PREY 
an object of admiration, and a reminder of 
William Tell’s Alpine eagle, which— for senti- 
mental reasons, only — he “could not shoot.” 
“ His broad, expanded wings 
Lay calm and motionless upon the air, 
As if he floated there without their aid, 
By the sole act of his unlorded will, 
That buoyed him proudly up.” 
The flight of the Vulture, by which it gains 
enormous heights without any serious exertion 
after getting well clear of the earth, is an inter- 
esting illustration of what a perfect areodrome 
might accomplish if it could flap its wings for a 
lofty rise, sail with abundant wing-power, and 
be intelligently guided. Beyond doubt, the 
bird keeps aloft by properly utilizing the lifting 
power of air-currents. 
By a strange coincidence, the bird which flies 
highest and longest, and soars most majestically, 
is also the bird of lowest tastes on the earth. 
Although it has strong talons and a strong beak, 
it kills nothing, and feeds upon dead animals. 
In every country on earth, vultures are treated 
as highly useful creatures. In the tropics, 
where their services really are of great value, 
they are fully protected by law. 
The species found farthest north, with a bright- 
red head and neck, is the Turkey Vulture, and 
it ranges across the continent from the plains 
of the Saskatchewan to Patagonia. 
The Black Vulture , 1 marked by a head and 
plumage which is perfectly black, is seldom seen 
in the northern portions of the United States, 
but is abundant in the Gulf states, and south- 
ward far down into South America. In ap- 
pearance this bird is most funereal. It is a 
smaller bird than the turkey vulture, but does 
not fly so well, and flaps its wings oftener. 
Around the cities of the South it is a great 
domestic economist and labor-saver. 
In Bombay, India, the Parsees expose their 
dead in two great, shallow, open-topped towers, 
called the Towers of Silence, and the vultures 
regularly devour them, — all except the bones, 
which fall down into a central pit. 
The California Vulture, or California 
“Condor ,” 2 is, among naturalists, the most 
1 Cath-ar-is'ta ur'u-bu. Average length, about 25 
inches. 
2 Gym! no-gyps calif or nianus. 
celebrated bird of this Family, partly because 
it is our largest bird of prey, and also because 
of its great rarity. The “collectors” are certain 
to exterminate it in a very few years. Its ap- 
pearance depends upon its attitude. With its 
wings spread, it is a grand bird; but with them 
closed its personality is far less impressive. On 
the wing, in the wild, rocky fastnesses of its na- 
tive mountains, those who have seen it there say it 
is a grand and imposing object, and it is not to 
be wondered at that its pursuit is quite as ex- 
citing as the chase of the big-horn. 
E. F. Keller, Photo., National Zoological Park. 
YOUNG CALIFORNIA VULTURE. 
Mrs. Florence Merriam Bailey 3 gives the fol- 
lowing as the dimensions of this bird: “Length, 
44 to 55 inches; wing-spread, 84 to nearly 11 
feet; weight, 20 to 25 pounds. Distribution: 
coast ranges of southern California from Mon- 
terey Bay south to Lower California, and east 
to Arizona.” 
This great Vulture breeds in the most inac- 
cessible crags it can find, but of course collectors 
find it. In 1894, Mr. Stephens actually encoun- 
tered a flock of twenty-six of these magnificent 
3 “ Handbook of Birds of the Western United 
States,” p. 144. 
