120 TlMEHRI. 
and fish, to crustaceans, molluscs, insects and worms : 
while the seeds and fruit and leaves of various plants 
form a considerable proportion in many species. It was 
as surprising to find the food contents of individual 
specimens of Ittinia plumbea, Asturina magnirostris, 
Elanoides furcatus, Ibyder americanus, L ater, etc., to 
consist largely, sometimes almost entirely, of seeds, 
fruit and young leaves, as it was to discover nothing but 
masses of leaves in the body of some of the specimens of 
the red-headed vulture (Cathartes aura). Scarcity of 
carrion would be sufficient to explain the peculiarity in 
the case of the vulture, though even then one would 
have imagined that fresh flesh would have been more 
acceptable than leaves; but in the case of the hawks, 
it is evident that, with the abundance of food in the form 
of insects, reptiles etc., they must actually prefer this 
partial vegetable diet. In certain species, there seems 
to be a preference as a rule for certain special kinds of 
food. Thus the sociable kite (Rostrhamus sociabilis) 
feeds chiefly on the various species of apple-snails (Am- 
pullaria glauca, and A. amazonica- see "The Mol- 
lusca of British Guiana/' Timehri, Vol. iv, New Series, 
1890, p. 37, where the latter species is referred doubt- 
fully to A. papyracea) ; the common black-faced chicken 
hawk or laughing falcon (Herpetotheres cachinnans) on 
snakes and lizards ; the black-necked red buzzard (Busa- 
rellus nigricollis) on crabs, worms, etc., which it gets 
on the mud-flats; and so on. Other species again seem 
to be altogether omnivorous. For instance, the com- 
monest chicken-hawk, the great-billed buzzard (Asturina 
magnirostris) feeds on small mammals such as rats, mice, 
opossums and bats ; on other birds, which it tears to 
