(_Turkey-buzzard._—+Wilson.+)
_Cathartes aura._
_Vultur aura_, +Linn.+
_Cathartes aura_, +Illiger+.—Aud. pl. 151.
[1] Length 25¹⁄₂ inches, expanse 66, tail 9¹⁄₂, wing from flexure
20¹⁄₄, rictus 2²⁄₁₀, tarsus 3, middle toe 2¹⁄₁₀, claw ⁹⁄₁₀.
The history of this species has been so ably written by Wilson
and Audubon, that I shall do little more than touch on one or two
disputed points in its economy. An excellent memoir of this Vulture,
communicated to me by my valued friend Richard Hill, Esq., of
Spanish-town, affords some interesting particulars:—
“Notwithstanding it forms so common a feature in our landscapes, being
seen every day and every where, on the mountain as well as in the
plain, in the city as well as in the country, the Aura is not common
to the West Indies. It exists in Cuba and Trinidad, but is unknown in
Hayti, and in all the intermediate islands of the Caribbean chain. We
are no doubt indebted for it to an accidental colony blown over to us
from Cuba, and Cuba herself owes it to some stray visitants from the
neighbouring continent of Florida. Some similar fortuity imparted to us
in common with Cuba, from America, its naturalized hive-bee, which is
said to have been, at comparatively a late period, an introduction into
St. Domingo.
“Those who ascribe the power which the Vulture possesses of discerning
from a distance its carrion food, to the sense of seeing or to the
sense of smelling, _exclusively_, appear to me to be both in error. It
is the two senses, exerted sometimes singly, but generally unitedly,
which give the facility which it possesses of tracing its appropriate
food from far distances. * * * * I shall relate one or two occurrences,
which seem to me to be instances in which the sense of seeing and the
sense of smelling were sometimes separately and sometimes unitedly
exerted by the Vulture in its quest for food.
“A poor German immigrant who lived alone in a detached cottage in
this town, rose from his bed after a two days’ confinement by fever,
to purchase in the market some fresh meat for a little soup. Before
he could do more than prepare the several ingredients of herbs and
roots, and put his meat in water for the preparation of his pottage,
the paroxysm of fever had returned, and he laid himself on his bed
exhausted. Two days elapsed in this state of helplessness and
inanition; by which time the mass of meat and pot-herbs had putrefied.
The stench becoming very perceptible in the neighbourhood, Vulture
after Vulture as they sailed past were observed always to descend to
the cottage of the German, and to sweep round, as if they had tracked
some putrid carcase, but failed to find exactly where it was. This led
the neighbours to apprehend that the poor man lay dead in his cottage,
as no one had seen him for the two days last past. His door was broken
open; he was found in a state of helpless feebleness, but the room was
most insufferably offensive from something putrefying, which could not
immediately be found, for the fever having deprived the German of his
wits, he had no recollection of his uncooked mess of meat and herbs. No
one imagining that the kitchen pot could contain anything offensive,
search was made everywhere but in the right place: at last the pot-lid
was lifted, and the cause of the insupportable stench discovered in the
corrupted soup-meat.
“Here we have the sense of smelling directing the Vultures, without
any assistance from the sense of sight, and discovering unerringly the
locality of the putrid animal matter, when even the neighbours were at
fault in their patient search.
“Some few days succeeding this occurrence, after a night and morning
of heavy rain, in which our streets had been inundated to the depth
of a foot, and flood after flood had been sweeping to the river the
drainage of the whole town,—a piece of recent offal had been brought
down from some of the yards where an animal had been slaughtered, and
lodged in the street. A Vulture beating about in search of food, dashed
in a slanting direction from a considerable height, and just resting,
without closing his wings, snatched up the fresh piece of flesh, and
carried it off.
“Here was the sense of sight unassisted by that of smelling, for the
meat was too recent to communicate any taint to the morning air, and
the Vulture stooped to it from a very far distance.
“On another occasion very near to the time when these facts attracted
my notice, a dead rat had been thrown out, early in the morning, into
the street, having been caught in the previous night. Two Vultures
sailing over head in quest of a morning meal, descended at the same
time, stooping to the dead rat, the one from the south, the other from
the north, and both seized the object of attraction at the same moment.
“Here again was the vision, unaided by the sensitiveness of the
nostrils, directing _two_ birds with the same appetite, at the same
moment, to the same object.
“For the next example, I am indebted to the records of a Police Court.
A clerk in the engineer department at Up-park Camp, brought before
the magistrates of St. Andrew’s, on the 20th of January, 1840, a man
who had been beset in the night by the dogs of the barracks. The
poultry-yard had been repeatedly robbed; and this person was supposed
to have been prowling after the roost-fowls, at the time the dogs rose
upon him.” This case had been heard, and the man committed to the
House of Correction, when a complaint was presented against another
man whom Major G., also of the camp, had detected under similar
circumstances, and lodged in the guard-house. Two days after his
detection, “the Major observed some Carrion-Vultures, hovering about
a spot in the fields, and on sending to see what was the matter, a
Kilmarnock cap containing a dead fowl, and some eggs, tied up in a pair
of old trousers, was found very near to the spot, where the prisoner
was caught. This discovery by the aid of the Vultures confirming the
suspicion against the prisoner, he was condemned.
“The last instance that I shall relate is one in which the senses of
hearing, seeing, and smelling were all exercised; but not under the
influence of the usual appetite for carrion food, but where the object
was a living, though wounded animal.
“A person in the neighbourhood of the town, having his pastures much
trespassed on by vagrant hogs, resorted to his gun to rid himself of
the annoyance. A pig which had been mortally wounded, and had run
squealing and trailing his blood through the grass, had not gone far
before it fell in the agonies of death. At the moment the animal was
perceived to be unable to rise, three Vultures at the same instant
descended upon it, attracted no doubt by the cries of the dying pig,
and by the scent of its reeking blood; and while it was yet struggling
for life, began to tear open its wounds and devour it.
“These several instances, I think, abundantly shew that all the senses
are put in requisition by the John-crow Vulture in its quest for food.”
From the facts thus presented by Mr. Hill we gather also, that the
common opinion is erroneous, which attributes to the Vulture a
confinement of appetite to flesh in a state of decomposition. Flesh
is his food; and that he does not pounce upon living prey like the
falcons, is because his structure is not adapted for predatory warfare,
and not because he refuses recent, and even living flesh, when in his
power. If the John-crow Vulture discovers a weakling new-born pig apart
from the rest, he will descend, and seizing it with his beak, will
endeavour to drag it away; its cries of course bring the mother, but
before she can come, the Vulture gives it a severe nip across the back,
which soon ensures the pig for his own maw. If a large hog be lying in
a sick condition beneath a tree, the Vulture will not hesitate to pick
out its eyes, having first muted upon the body, that it may discover
whether the animal be able to rise; the contact of the hot fæces
arousing the hog if he be not too far gone. Cattle also he will attack
under similar circumstances. One of my servants once saw a living dog
partly devoured by one. The dogs of the negroes, half-starved at home,
“bony, and gaunt, and grim,” if they discover carrion, will gorge
themselves until they can hardly stir, when they lie down and sleep
with death-like intensity. A large dog thus gorged, was sleeping under
a tree, when a John-crow descended upon him, perhaps attracted by
the smell of the carrion which the dog had been devouring, and began
tearing the muscles of the thigh: it actually laid open a considerable
space, before the poor animal was aroused by the pain and started up
with a howl of agony. The wound was dressed, but the dog soon died.
A notion is very prevalent, that the Vulture refuses the flesh of its
own kind; or that if there ever be an exception, it is only when the
stomach of the dead bird is filled with carrion. This I have proved to
be unfounded. I shot one in August, the body of which I threw out; in
a very few minutes it was surrounded by others, and the bones picked
clean, though the stomach was nearly empty, and the body had no odour
of carrion.
“The Aura Vultures,” says Mr. Hill, “are often to be observed soaring
in companies, particularly previous to a thunder-storm. This occurrence
is commonly remarked, because at almost all other times this species is
seen solitary, or, at most, scouring the country in pairs. They appear
to delight in the hurly-burly of transient squalls, gathering together,
and sweeping round in oblique circles, as the fitful gust favours them
with an opportunity of rising through the blast, or winging onwards
through the misty darkness of the storm. The effect which this imparts
to a tropical landscape at a time when thick clouds are upon the
mountains, and all vegetation is bending beneath the sudden rush of the
tempest, as gust gathers louder and louder, is particularly wild and
exciting. Ordinarily, however, in the evening, when the sea-breeze is
lulling, and the fading day-beam is changing like the hues of the dying
dolphin, they delight to congregate, and career at an immense height.
At this time they soar so loftily, that they are scarcely discernible
as they change their position in wheeling from shade into light, and
from light into shade. They seem as if they rose upward to follow the
fading day-light, and to revel in the departing sunbeams, as, one after
the other, the varying hues are withdrawn, or irradiate only the upper
heavens.
“There is a salacious predilection of the Aura Vulture for the black
hen of the poultry-yard, and the black turkey, supported by so many
well-authenticated instances, that I cannot doubt the fact. It is said
that the Vulture on these occasions makes its amorous attack with an
eagerness assuming the character of ungovernable fury. Fear overcomes
the hen, and the sudden assault terminates in an embrace, from which
she escapes only to linger and die in a very short time. A sort of
_carcinoma uteri_ is the consequence. * * *
“This is altogether a curious and very unaccountable fact. Those
who know how difficult it is to bend instinctive nature, and induce
the union of animals different and yet similar, will perceive the
perplexity in which this occurrence is involved. The only link of
relationship in these events, is the very distant similitude of colour;
for the unnatural predilection is restricted to fowls of black plumage.”
I may add that on my reading the above notes of my friend, I mentioned
this statement to my negro servants, both of whom assured me that the
fact was indubitable, and well known; and each of them averred that he
had witnessed its occurrence.
The dimensions in the note, p. 1, were those of the largest of two
adult males of the ordinary size, which, however, is considerably less
than that of continental specimens. The tongue is singularly formed,
and may be termed spoon-shaped; or rather it is a half-tube, curved
in its length, having its edges, which are bony, cut into minute and
beautifully regular teeth, pointing backwards. The skin of the head
is naked, except some small scattered hairs, and falls on the occiput
into ten or twelve transverse wrinkles; its colour varies in the same
individual, being sometimes purple, then in a few minutes bright red;
when dead, it is a dull lake-pink. The feet are scaly, white; or
rather dull reddish, covered more or less with a white scurf; the red
hue is most apparent at the upper part of the tarsus; the claws are
horny black. Immediately in front of the eye is a series of irregular
tuberculous excrescences of a dull white, varying in extent.
Like many black birds this Vulture is subject to albinism. There was a
pied one, which for a long time had been occasionally seen in company
with others over Bluefields and the vicinity. I at length invited him
with some flesh, and lying in wait, shot him. The white feathers were
promiscuously interspersed, chiefly on the shoulders, breast, upper and
under tail-coverts, and wing-quills; some of the longest primaries
were wholly, others partially, white; but the wings were not uniform
in the distribution of the colours. This individual was recognisable
almost as far as visible; for the white was very pure. Some, however,
are found much more completely white than this; my negro lad, Sam, had
seen one which had the wings wholly white except some of the least
coverts; and the breast also white.
The situations usually selected in Jamaica by this Vulture for the
laying and hatching of its eggs, are hollows and ledges of rocks in
secluded places, or inaccessible crags and cliffs. A little dry trash
or decaying leaves, are all the apology for a nest. A young one taken
in such a situation, and brought to me in May, was nearly full-fledged,
but bore little resemblance to the adult. The whole body, with the
exception of the winglet, the wing quills, and the tail, was clothed
with down of the purest white, while the naked head with the beak was
black. The eyes, as usual in young birds, were blue-grey. It smelled
strongly, unbearably, of musk; was very fierce, tilting at every thing,
striking with the wings, and leaping forward to bite. It kept up a
continued harsh hissing. The nest contained two young, but they had
begun to wander, though as yet unable to fly.
+Fam.+—FALCONIDÆ. (_The Falcons._)