BLACK VULTURE. 439 
Vulture They are creamy or yellowish-white, variously blotched and splashed with 
different shades of brown and usually showing other smaller spots of lavenderand pur 
plish-drab. The young aresaid to be covered at first with a whitish down and to be fed 
for some time with half-digested carrion disgorged by the parents.” 
CATHART#S ATRATUS (Bartr.) Less. 
Black Vulture; Carrion Crow. 
_ Cathartes iota, AUDUBON, Orn. Biog., 1i, 1834, 33. 
Cathartes atratus, AUDUBON, B. Am., i, 1840, 17.—KIRKPATRICK, Ohio Farmer, vii, 1858, 
59; Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1858, 344.—_ Brewer, N. A. Oology, Smithsonian Contribu- 
tions, xi, 1859, 5—WHEATON, Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1860, 360; Reprint, 1861, 2; 
Food of Birds, etc., Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1874, 571 5; Reprint, 1875, 11.—Couss, Key, 
1872, 222.—LANGpoN, Bull. Nutt. Ornith. Club, ii, 1877, 109; Cat. Birds of Cin., 
1877, 13. 
Catharista atrata, BAIRD, BREWER and RIDGWAY, iii, 1874, 352.—LANGDON, Revised List, 
Journ. Cin. Soc. Nat. Hist., i, 1879, 180; Reprint, 14. 
Vultur atratus BARTRAM, Trav., 1792, 289. 
Cathartes atratus, LESSON, Man., i, 1828, 73. 
Cathartes iota, BONAPARTE, Syn., 1828, 23. 
Blackish; quills very pale, almost whitish, on the under surface; head dusky; bill 
and feet grayish-yellow. Skin of the head as in last species, but plumage running up 
the back of the neck to a point on the hind head; tail square. Smaller than aura but 
a heavier bird. Length, about 2 feet; wing, 14; tail, 4. 
Habitat, Tropical and Sub-tropicai America. On the Atlantic coast, north regularly to 
North Carolina, casually to Massachusetts and Maine; resident from South Carolina, 
southward. 
Rare or accidental winter visitor in South-western Ohio only. Fora 
long time the following statement of Audubon was the only authority for 
considering it an Ohio bird: 
‘This bird is a constant resident of all our southern States, extends far up the Mis- 
sissippi Valley, and continues the whole year in Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and even in 
the State of Ohio as far as Cincinnati.” 
Mr. Langdon gives the following, the only recent note of its occur- 
rence : 
‘On or about December 20, 1876, I came upon three individuals of this species 
( Cathartes atratus, Less.) feeding on the carcass of a hog, in a wooded ravine near Madi- 
sonville; one of them I shot at and wounded, but lost sight of it in the woods, and the 
other two remained in the immediate vicinity long enough to give me an excellent op- 
portunity to observe their peculiarities of form and flight, although I could not approach 
within gunshot of them. On January 1, 1877, however, I found a specimen that had 
been killed a few days previous, in the same locality, by Mr. Edwin Leonard, of Madison- 
ville, under circumstances rendering it probable that was the one I had wounded; its 
skin is now in my collection. 
“The occurrence of this bird in Ohio, or in fact anywhere in the Mississippi Valley 
