. Bird lore . lmost any section of the southern and westernstates, one has but to look up to discover, off against the sunlit sky, the darkform of a Turkey Vulture keeping its vigil over the earth beneath. No land-bird of this country is comparable to it in matters of grace and majesty ofmovement while in the air. As it soars, with scarcely a wing-beat, now low overthe gardens or woods, and again far aloft in the eternal blue, the watcher maywell exclaim, Behold flight in its utmost perfection! Turkey Buzzards, as these birds are almost universally called, are not soabundant as some observers
. Bird lore . lmost any section of the southern and westernstates, one has but to look up to discover, off against the sunlit sky, the darkform of a Turkey Vulture keeping its vigil over the earth beneath. No land-bird of this country is comparable to it in matters of grace and majesty ofmovement while in the air. As it soars, with scarcely a wing-beat, now low overthe gardens or woods, and again far aloft in the eternal blue, the watcher maywell exclaim, Behold flight in its utmost perfection! Turkey Buzzards, as these birds are almost universally called, are not soabundant as some observers have been led to believe. They are such large andstriking creatures, and keep so much in view, that the error of thinking theyexist by thousands in any given community is perhaps a natural one. And yet,for so large a bird, we may consider them relatively numerous. They are most useful birds as scavengers. They quickly find and consumewith equal avidity the dead snake by the roadside, the trapped rat thrown out. TURKEY VULTURE. FOUR WEEKS OLDPhotographed by Thomas H. Jackson (319) 320 Bird - Lore from the barn, or the deceased hog in the pasture. They eat dead fish left onthe sea-beaches, and I once saw one feeding on the floating body of an many of the southern states, where no laws exist requiring cattle ownersto fence in their stock, cows are constantly killed by railroad locomotives, and,as one passes such spots on the train, it is a common sight to see TurkeyBuzzards and Black Vultures rise from their feast and flap up to the limbs ofthe neighboring trees. When the planter loses a horse by death, the body isdragged off into the woods and left. Two or three days later only bones andtrampled grass mark the last resting-place of the departed beast of burden. In many a southern city the Vultures constitute a most effective street-cleaning department, and the garbage piles on the citys dump-heaps are sweptand purified by them. When the rancher of the West dresses ca
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirds, booksubjectorn
