214 Birds Every Child Should Know 
Because it is so helpful in ridding the earth of 
decaying matter, the law and the Southern 
people, white and coloured, protect the vvdture. 
Its usefulness is more easily seen and understood 
than that of many smaller birds of greater value 
which, alas ! are a target for every gtmner. Con- 
sequently, it is perhaps the commonest bird in 
the South, and tame enough for the merest tyro 
in bird lore to learn that it is about two and 
a half feet long, with a wing spread of fully six 
feet; that its head and neck are bare and red 
like a turkey’s, and that its body is covered 
with dusky feathers edged with brown — ^an 
ungainly, unlovely creature out of its element, 
the air. Another sable scavenger, the black 
vulture or carrion crow, of similar habits, but 
with a more southerly range, is common in the 
Gulf States. 
Because it feeds on carrion that not even a 
goat grudges it, and is too lazy and cowardly to 
pick a quarrel, the buzzard has no enemies. 
Although classed among birds of prey, it does 
not frighten the smallest chick in the poultry 
yard when it flops down beside it. With beak 
and claws capable of gashing painful wounds, 
it never uses them for defence, but resorts to 
the disgusting trick of throwing up the contents 
of its stomach over any creature that comes too 
near. When a colony of the ever-sociable 
buzzards are nesting, you may be very sure 
