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The difficulties of recognizing the various species of Hawks and dis- 
criminating friend from foe are considerable. However, a few rules will 
assist. All black Hawks are positively beneficial. Most summer Hawks 
on the prairies are to be regarded as beneficial unless actually taken in a 
harmful act. Those of late autumn or winter may be treated as harmful 
without much danger to innocent species. 
SUBORDER— SARCORHAMPHI. AMERICAN VULTURES 
This suborder is composed of the American Vultures which are 
systematically quite distinct from those of the Old World. One family 
only is represented in Canada, Cathartidae the Turkey Vultures. Vultures 
are carrion feeders, relying upon dead meat and not capturing living prey 
unless it is in the last stages of exhaustion. Ordinarily, they touch nothing 
but decaying flesh. This is usually regarded as a matter of choice, but 
may be a necessity, as their feet are not formed for grasping and the bill 
is comparatively weak. They may, therefore, be unable to break into 
large, sound carcasses and are forced to await the decay which renders 
the subject less refractory. 
FAMILY CATHARTIDAE. TURKEY VULTURES 
General Description. Large birds, uniformly nearly black in coloration. Bill is 
comparatively long and less strongly hooked than in remainder of the Raptores (Figure 
30, page 28). Head and upper neck are bare of feathers and have a superficial general 
resemblance to those of the Turkey, but are without wattles or warty excrescences. Feet 
resemble those of a Chicken rather than of a Hawk. Claws are blunt and the foot is poorly 
adapted for seizing or holding prey. 
Distribution. Vultures are essentially birds of the warmer regions. They enter 
Canada only along the most southern boundaries. 
Vultures cannot be observed to best advantage in Canada. In the 
southern United States they may be seen every hour of the day floating on 
motionless wings high in the air, searching the country with telescopic eye 
for carrion. When an animal dies (or even before) it is sighted, and a 
black form drops beside it from the sky; shortly it is joined by another, 
and another, and soon where not a bird was previously to be seen many 
are struggling about the unclean feast. Though dissection shows very 
highly developed nostrils, scent does not seem to guide the Vultures to any 
appreciable extent. Experiment indicates that the eyesight alone is relied 
upon for locating food. The flight of the Vultures is one of the wonders 
of the physicist. They hang suspended in the air or even rise 
beyond the limits of human vision, without visible effort. On motionless, 
outspread pinions they glide in great ascending spirals, mounting higher 
and higher, and then, still circling, maintain their positions for hours at a 
time, without a single apparent stroke of the wing. Many explanations 
of the phenomenon have been offered, but all so far advanced fall just short 
of conviction. In western Canada we have only one species. 
Economic Status. The Vultures are not Birds of Prey in the usual 
acceptation of the term, for they do not kill what they eat but feed entirely 
on carrion. They have been accused, and perhaps justly, of acceleratmg 
death at times, but they never attack an animal that is not in the last 
stages of exhaustion. In Canada the species is of little economic import- 
ance, but in the south their scavenging is an important safeguard to the 
health of the more careless communities, and in many places they are 
rigorously protected by law for sanitary reasons. 
