268 
TURKEY VULTURE. 
some specimens the upper mandible is tipt with black. There is 
little or no other perceptible difference between the sexes. 
The bird from which the foregoing description was taken, 
was shot for this work, at Great Egg-harbour, the thirtieth of Janu- 
ary. It was a female, in perfect plumage, excessively fat, and 
weighed five pounds one ounce, avoirdupois. On dissection, it 
emitted a slight musky odour. 
The Vulture is included in the catalogue of those fowls de- 
clared unclean and an abomination by the Levitical constitution, 
and which the Israelites were interdicted eating* We presume 
that this prohibition was religiously observed, so far at least as it 
related to the whole family of the Vultures, from whose flesh there 
arises such an unsavory odour, that we question if all the sweeten- 
ing processes ever invented could render it palatable to a Jew, Pa- 
gan, or Christian. 
Temminck, and some recent ornithologists, have separated 
our Vultures from the genus Vultiir, and have classed them under 
the genus Cathartes of Illiger. It should seem that there is a pro- 
priety in this arrangement ; but as Wilson published, in his sixth 
volume, the catalogue of his land birds, adopting the genus Vultur, 
as sanctioned by Latham, we have not thought proper, in this in- 
stance, to deviate from his plan. 
^ Leviticus, xi, 14, Deuteronomy, xiv, 13. 
