6 
CATHARTES AURA. 
are not informed ; but it is probable that they extend 
their migrations to the Columbia, allured thither by the 
quantity of dead salmon which, at certain seasons, line 
the shores of that river. 
They are numerous in the West India islands, where 
they are said to be “ far inferior in size to those of North 
America.”* This leads us to the inquiry, whether or 
no the present species has been confounded, by all the 
naturalists of Europe, with the black vulture, or car- 
rion crow, which is so common in the southern parts of 
our continent. If not, why has the latter been totally 
overlooked in the numerous ornithologies and nomen- 
clatures with which the world has been favoured, when 
it is so conspicuous and remarkable, that no stranger 
visits South Carolina, Georgia, or the Spanish pro- 
vinces, but is immediately struck with the novelty of 
its appearance ? We can find no cause for the turkey 
buzzards of the islands f being smaller than ours, 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 described by Ulloa, as being so nume- 
rous in South America, is no other than the black vul- 
ture. The ornithologists of Europe, not aware of the 
existence of a new species, have, without investigation, 
contented themselves with the opinion, that the bird 
called by the above mentioned traveller the gallinazo, 
was the vultur aura , the subject of our present history. 
This is the more inexcusable, as we expect in naturalists 
* Pennant, Arctic Zoology. 
f The vulture which Sir Hans Sloane has figured and described, 
and which he says is common in Jamaica, is undoubtedly the vultur 
aura. “ The head, and an inch in the neck, are bare, and without 
feathers, of a flesh colour, covered with a thin membrane, like that 
of turkeys, with which the most part of the bill is covered likewise ; 
bill (below the membrane) more than an inch long, whitish at the 
point ; tail broad, and nine inches long ; legs and feet three inches 
long ; it flies exactly like a kite, and preys on nothing living ; but 
when dead, it devours their carcasses, whence they are not moles- 
ted.” Sloane, Natural History , Jamaica, vol. ii. p. 294, folio. 
