REPORT UPON BIRDS COLLECTED ON THE SURVEY- 
BY A. L. HEERMANN, M. D. 
CATHARTES CALIFORNIANUS, Shaw.—The California Vulture. 
Cathartes californianus, Nuttall’s Ornithology, vol. I, p. 39. 
Audubon, Birds of America, Fol. pi 426— Cassin, Gen. Rep. P. R. R. IX, 1858, 5. 
Cathartes californicus, Aud. Birds of America, Oct. vol. I, p. 12, pi. 1. 
Vultur calif ornianus, Shaw, Nat. Misc., vol. IX, pi. 301. 
This species, the largest which our western fauna possesses, was observed occasionally during 
our survey sailing majestically in wide circles at a great height and ranging by its powers of 
flight over an immense space of country in search of food. Whilst unsuccessfully hunting in 
the Tejon valley, we have often passed several hours without a single one of this species being 
in sight, hut on bringing down any large game, ere the body had grown cold, these birds might 
be seen rising above the horizon and slowly sweeping towards us, intent upon their share of the 
prey. Nor in the absence of the hunter will his game be exempt from their ravenous appetite, 
though it he carefully hidden and covered by shrubbery and heavy branches; as I have known 
these marauders to drag forth from its concealment and devour a deer within an hour. Any 
article of clothing thrown over a carcass will shield it from the vulture, though not from the 
grizzly hear, who little respects such flimsy protection. My coat, used on one occasion to cover 
a deer, was found, on our return, torn by Bruin to shreds and the game destroyed. The California 
vulture joins to his rapacity an immense muscular power, as a sample of which it will suffice 
to state that I have known four of them, jointly, to drag off, over the space of two hundred 
yards, the body of a young grizzly bear weighing upwards of a hundred pounds. A nest of 
this bird with young was discovered on the Tuolumnes river in a thicket, by some Indians who 
were there sent in search of a horse thief. It was about eight feet back from the entrance of a 
crevice in the rocks, completely surrounded and masked by thick under brush and trees and 
composed of a few loose sticks thrown negligently together. The effluvium arising from the 
vicinity was overpowering. We found two other nests of a like construction and similarly 
situated ; one at the head of the Merced river and the other in the mountains near Warner’s 
ranche. From the latter nest the Indians yearly rob the young, and having duly prepared 
them by long feeding, kill them at one of their great festivals. 
CATHARTES AURA, Linn.—The Red-headed Turkey Vulture. 
Cathartes aura, Rich, and Swain, Faun. Bor. Amer. vol. II, p. 4.— Nuttall’s Ornith. vol. I, p. 43.— Audubon, Birds 
of Arner. Oct. vol. I, p. 15 ; pi. 2.— Cassin, Gen. Rep. IX, 6. 
This bird ranges over the whole extent of California, being met in great numbers in the 
vicinity of Fort Yuma, at the junction of the Colorado and Gila rivers, and more especially on 
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