TURKEY-BUZZARD. 
45 
opportunity offers they eat with gluttonous voracity, and 
fill themselves in such a manner as to be sometimes in- 
capable of rising from the ground. They are accused at 
times of attacking young pigs and lambs, beginning their 
assault by picking out the eyes. Mr. Waterton, how- 
ever, while at Demerara, watched them for hours together 
amidst reptiles of all descriptions, but they never made 
any attack upon them. He even killed lizards and frogs 
and put them in their way, but they did not appear to 
notice them until they attained the putrid scent. So 
that a more harmless animal, living at all upon flesh, is 
not in existence, than the Turkey Vulture. 
At night they roost in the neighbouring trees, but, I 
believe, never in flocks like the Black kind. In winter 
they sometimes pass the night in numbers on the roofs 
of the houses, in the suburbs of the southern cities, and 
appear particularly desirous of taking advantage of the 
warmth which they discover to issue from the chimneys. 
Here, when the sun shines, they and their black rela- 
tives, though no wise social, may be observed perch- 
ed in these conspicuous places basking in the feeble 
rays, and stretching out their dark wings to admit the 
warmth directly to their chilled bodies. And, when not 
engaged in acts of necessity, they amuse themselves on 
fine clear days, even at the coolest season of the year, 
by soaring, in companies, slowly and majestically into the 
higher regions of the atmosphere ; rising gently, but rap- 
idly, in vast spiral circles, they sometimes disappear 
beyond the thinnest clouds. They practise this lofty 
flight particularly before the commencement of thunder 
storms ; when, elevated above the war of elements, they 
float at ease in the ethereal space with outstretched 
wings, making no other apparent effort than the light 
balloon, only now and then steadying their sailing pin- 
