TURKEY VULTURE. 
19 
back, shoulders, scapulars and secondaries, is glossed with green 
and bronze, and has purple reflections; the thighs are feathered 
to the knees; feet considerably webbed; middle toe three inches 
and a half in length, and about an inch and a half longer than 
the outer one, which is the next longest; the sole of the foot is 
hard and rough; claws dark horn colour; the legs are of a pale 
flesh colour, and three inches long. The claws are larger, but 
the feet slenderer, than those of the Carrion-crow. The bill of 
the male is pure white, in some specimens the upper mandible 
is tipt with black. There is little or no other perceptible diffe- 
rence between the sexes. 
The bird from which the foregoing description was taken, 
was shot for this work, at Great Egg-harbour, the thirtieth of 
January. 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 declar- 
ed 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 unsavoury odour, that we question if all the 
sweetening processes ever invented, could reader it palatable 
to a Jew, Pagan, or Christain. 
Temminck, and some recent ornithologists, have separated 
our Vultures from the genus Vultur, and have classed them 
under the genus Cathartes of Illiger. It should seem that there 
is a propriety 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 instance, to deviate from his plan.t 
* Leviticus, xi, 14. Deuteronomy, xiv, 13. 
•j- From Mr. Ord’s supplementary volume. 
