TURKEY VULTURE. 
17 
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 describ- 
ed 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 carcas- 
ses, but they were rather skeletons, the Jflesh and entrails being 
all devoured, and nothing remaining but the skin and bones. 
But the skin and bones being in their natural places, the flesh 
being, as it were, scooped out, and the wound, by which the 
Eagles enter the body, being ever in the belly, you would not, 
till you had come up to the skeleton, have had the least suspi- 
cion that any such matter had happened. The Dutch at the Cape 
frequently call those Eagles, on account of their tearing out the 
entrails of beasts, Strunt- Vogels, i. e. Dung-birds. It frequent- 
ly happens, that an ox that is freed from the plough, and left to 
find his way home, lies down to rest himself by the way; and 
if he does so, ’tis a great chance but the Eagles fall upon him, 
and devour him. They attack an ox or cow in a body, consist- 
ing of an hundred and upwards.”* 
Buffbn conjectures that this murderous V ulture is the Turkey- 
buzzard ; and concludes his history of the latter with the follow- 
ing invective against the whole fraternity: “ In every part of 
the globe they are voracious, slothful, oflensive and hateful, and, 
like the wolves, are as noxious during their life, as useless af- 
ter their death. ” 
It turns out, however, that this ferocious Vulture is not the 
Turkey-buzzard, as may be seen in Levaillant’s “ Histoire Na- 
turelle des Oiseaux d’ Afrique,” vol. i, pi. 10, where the Chasse- 
long’, whitish at the point; tail broad and nine inches long; legs and feet 
three inches long; it flies exactly like a Kite, and pi eys on nolhing livirtg, but 
when dead it devours tlieir carcasses, whence they are not molested.” Sloane, 
Nat. Hist. Jam. vol. ii, p. 294, folio. 
* Medley’s Kolben, vol. ii, p. 135. 
VOL. I. — E e 
