TURKEY VULTURE. 
265 
that they extend their migrations to the latter, allured thither 
by the quantity of dead salmon which at certain seasons line its 
shores. 
They are numerous in the West India islands, where they are 
said to be “far inferior in size to those of North America.”* This 
leads us to the inquiry whether or not the present species has been 
confounded by the naturalists of Europe, with the Black Vulture, 
or Carrion-crow, which is so common in the southern parts of our 
continent. If not, why has the latter been totally overlooked in 
the most noted Ornithologies with which the world has been fa- 
voured, when it is so conspicuous and remarkable, that there is no 
stranger who visits South Carolina, Georgia, or the Spanish pro- 
vinces, but is immediately struck with the novelty of its appear- 
ance ? We can find no cause for the Turkey-buzzards of the islands-]- 
being smaller than ours, and must conclude that the Carrion-crow, 
which is of less size, has been mistaken for the former. In the 
history which follows, we shall endeavour to make it evident that 
the species described by Ulloa, as being so numerous in South 
America, is no other than the Black Vulture. 
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 
i 
* Pennant, Arctic Zoology. 
t The Vulture which Sir Hans Sloane figured and described, and which he says is com- 
mon in Jamaica, is undoubtedly the Vultur aura; “ The head and an inch in the neck are bare 
and without feathers, of a flesh colour, covered with a thin membrane, like that of Turkies, 
with which the most part of the bill is covered likewise ; bill (below the membrane) more than 
an inch long, whitish at the point ; tail broad and nine inches long ; legs and feet three inches 
long ; it flies exactly like a Kite, and preys on nothing but when dead it devours their 
carcasses, whence they are not molested.*’ Sloane, Nat. Hist. Jam. vol. ii, p. 294, folio. 
3 X 
VOL. IX. 
