330 
CATHARTES A UR A. 
gather around our camps to feed upon the bodies of birds that we threw out to them. They 
wild also gather around the hunter when he shoots a deer in order to devour the intestines 
which he usually removes on the spot. This brings me to a point which I wish to men¬ 
tion, regarding Audubon’s experiments upon these birds. For the benefit of those who 
may not chance to be familiar with them, I will merely say that this distinguished author 
had an idea that the Turkey Buzzards were deficient in the sense of smell, or at least, that 
they were not guided to their food by this sense. To prove this, he covered the carcass of 
a hog, or other animal, with brush or leaves and the Vultures would not trouble it although 
they frequently passed over the spot, only a short distance above the ground. Now it is 
a well-known fact with hunters in Florida, that whenever the body of an animal .is cov¬ 
ered ever so lightly with brush or leaves, it will never be disturbed by the Buzzards. I 
have been a frequent witness to this and have, myself, seen the body of a freshly killed 
deer left for hours with a few palmetto leaves laid over it, which only partly concealed it, 
without it being troubled by the Vultures, although they gathered in such numbers as to 
almost instantly devour the intestines which had been removed, then sat around on the 
trees in the neighborhood with their hunger unappeased. Now there is but one way to 
explain this singular abstinence on the part of birds which are usually so rapacious that 
any meat left exposed is devoured very quickly. Whenever the puma (Felts concolor) 
leaves a portion of his food uneaten, he invariably covers it with a little grass, some leaves, 
or other debris, that he can scratch over it. lie then conceals himself near the spot and 
watches the cache until he feels hungry. The remains of the feast are, as I have seen, 
not entirely concealed upon such occasions but are only partly covered, just enough, how¬ 
ever, to taboo it for other animals, and woe betide the helpless bird or beast who, impelled 
by hunger, dares to break the puma’s seal; he is so near that a single bound or two brings 
him upon them, when they are fortunate if they escape with their lives. Turkey Buzzards 
have some little sagacity, and instinctive, or inherited, sagacity is, as every naturalist 
knows, the strongest; thus meat covered by a puma is not to be lightly meddled with, and 
how are Turkey Buzzards, with their slight stock of wisdom, going to distinguish between 
booty covered by a puma and that concealed no less clumsily by man? As the olfactory 
nerves of these Vultures are as highly developed as those of other birds, I cannot avoid the 
conclusion that they enjoy the sense of smell to an equal degree with other species, espe¬ 
cially as nothing in my experience with them tends to show that they do not. 
Although the Red-headed Vultures congregate in great numbers in the vicinity of 
cities, towns, and other settlements, they are also abundant in the wilder sections, where 
they are generally much shyer than in localities in which they are protected. These Vul¬ 
tures breed about the first of April in the more southern sections, and a little later further 
north. The eggs are usually placed on the ground but Captain Dummett informed me 
that a pair nested for years on the top of the old Spanish lookout which stands on a small 
island in the Mantanzas River near the inlet. These birds are generally distributed and 
occur from Southern Pennsylvania to the extreme point of Florida and also on the Keys 
but in this latter named locality they are not to be found in such numbers as on the 
main-land. 
