AMERICAN VULTURES: TURKEY VULTURE 
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Food. —Principally carrion but also snakes, toads, rats, mice, and occasionally 
young birds. 
General Habits. —In the days of the early explorers, before the 
prevalence of guns, Mr. Henshaw found the Indians using vulture quills 
to feather their arrows. At this time, Doctor Heermann tells us, the 
Turkey Vulture was seen on the desert, where it found “ an ample supply 
of food from the carcasses of the numerous animals perishing from 
fatigue or the want of grass or water, and whose whitened bones strewn 
over the ground marked both the road and the hardships of the western 
pioneer” (1859, pp. 29-30). In the Carlsbad caves region in 1924, a dry 
winter and scanty forage for stock had resulted in an ample food supply 
of cattle and burros in the canyons. A colt that had been killed and 
partly eaten by a mountain lion was found by Mr. Bailey surrounded by 
a band of the carrion eaters. Except on the rare occasions when the 
Vultures are seen standing red-headed on the ground about the bones 
of some dead animal, we forget what we owe them as scavengers, for 
they are generally seen circling around high in the sky on outspread 
gray-bordered wings. In Chama Canyon we once saw a flock of twenty 
or thirty circling around high above us. At Dulce a gray-headed young 
one was discovered sitting on the fence near camp, perhaps attracted by 
our specimens—prairie dog, badger, coyote, and lynx—laid out to dry 
in front of the tent. They visit traps put out for bears, Mr. Ligon says, 
though how they find them is still a much discussed question. 
Another disputed matter Doctor Wetmore settles authoritatively, 
saying—“ Reports that this bird is responsible for dissemination of 
diseases among domestic stock are wholly without foundation and it 
should be protected as a useful species” (1927b, pp. 319-320). 
About Mesilla Professor Merrill occasionally saw one of the great 
birds perched upon a tall yucca, and in the tornillo stretches perched on 
solitary cottonwoods (MS). At Lake Burford Doctor Wetmore found 
the Vultures fairly common, often soaring above the hills or about the 
broad sandstone ledges in the canyon below. One day he saw six pairs 
of these huge birds walking about on a rocky beach where apparently 
they were looking for the dead axolotls (mud puppies) often washed up 
by the waves. Two walked solemnly down to the water’s edge and 
drank, dipping in the water and then raising the head in order to 
swallow. They clambered over the piles of Potamogeton and algae 
cast up the previous year and left on the shore, “pecking at it experi¬ 
mentally, pulling off the surface and digging into the interior with their 
bills as they would into carrion. One, suddenly feeling the warm sun, 
extended its wings and spread its tail, remaining thus for several 
minutes” (1920a, pp. 397-398). 
On cold windy evenings at the Carlsbad caves, Mr. Bailey found 
large numbers, sometimes perhaps two or three hundred, gathered, 
