Wanderings in South America

by Charles Waterton

When I had done with the carcass of the large snake it was conveyed into the forest, as I expected that it would attract the king of the vultures as soon as time should have rendered it sufficiently savoury. In a few days it sent forth that odour which a carcass should send forth, and about twenty of the common vultures came and perched on the neighbouring trees. The king of the vultures came, too; and I observed that none of the common ones seemed inclined to begin breakfast till his majesty had finished. When he had consumed as much snake as Nature informed him would do him good, he retired to the top of a high mora-tree, and then all the common vultures fell to and made a hearty meal.

The head and neck of the king of the vultures are bare of feathers; but the beautiful appearance they exhibit fades in death. The throat and the back of the neck are of a fine lemon colour; both sides of the neck, from the ears downwards, of a rich scarlet; behind the corrugated part there is a white spot. The crown of the head is scarlet; betwixt the lower mandible and the eye and close by the ear there is a part which has a fine silvery- blue appearance; the corrugated part is of a dirty light brown; behind it and just above the white spot a portion of the skin is blue, and the rest scarlet; the skin which juts out behind the neck, and appears like an oblong caruncle, is blue in part and part orange.

The bill is orange and black, the caruncles on his forehead orange, and the cere orange; the orbits scarlet, and the irides white. Below the bare part of the neck there is a cinereous ruff. The bag of the stomach, which is only seen when distended with food, is of a most delicate white, intersected with blue veins, which appear on it just like the blue veins on the arm of a fair-complexioned person. The tail and long wing-feathers are black, the belly white, and the rest of the body a fine satin colour.

I cannot be persuaded that the vultures ever feed upon live animals, not even upon lizards, rats, mice or frogs. I have watched them for hours together, but never could see them touch any living animals, though innumerable lizards, frogs and small birds swarmed all around them. I have killed lizards and frogs, and put them in a proper place for observation; as soon as they began to stink the aura vulture invariably came and took them off. I have frequently observed that the day after the planter had burnt the trash in a cane-field the aura vulture was sure to be there, feeding on the snakes, lizards and frogs which had suffered in the conflagration. I often saw a large bird (very much like the common gregarious vulture, at a distance) catch and devour lizards; after shooting one it turned out to be not a vulture but a hawk, with a tail squarer and shorter than hawks have in general. The vultures, like the goat-sucker and woodpecker, seem to be in disgrace with man. They are generally termed a voracious, stinking, cruel and ignoble tribe. Under these impressions the fowler discharges his gun at them, and probably thinks he has done well in ridding the earth of such vermin.

Some Governments impose a fine on him who kills a vulture. This is a salutary law, and it were to be wished that other Governments would follow so good an example. I would fain here say a word or two in favour of this valuable scavenger.

Kind Providence has conferred a blessing on hot countries in giving them the vulture; He has ordered it to consume that which, if left to dissolve in putrefaction, would infect the air and produce a pestilence. When full of food the vulture certainly appears an indolent bird; he will stand for hours together on the branch of a tree, or on the top of a house, with his wings drooping, and, after rain, with them spread and elevated to catch the rays of the sun. It has been remarked by naturalists that the flight of this bird is laborious. I have paid attention to the vulture in Andalusia and to those in Guiana, Brazil, and the West Indies, and conclude that they are birds of long, even and lofty flight. Indeed, whoever has observed the aura vulture will be satisfied that his flight is wonderfully majestic and of long continuance.

This bird is above five feet from wing to wing extended. You will see it soaring aloft in the aerial expanse on pinions which never flutter, and which at the same time carry him through the fields of ether with a rapidity equal to that of the golden eagle. In Paramaribo the laws protect the vulture, and the Spaniards of Angustura never think of molesting him. In 1808 I saw the vultures in that city as tame as domestic fowls; a person who had never seen a vulture would have taken them for turkeys. They were very useful to the Spaniards. Had it not been for them, the refuse of the slaughter-houses in Angustura would have caused an intolerable nuisance.

The common black, short, square-tailed vulture is gregarious, but the aura vulture is not so; for though you may see fifteen or twenty of them feeding on the dead vermin in a cane-field, after the trash has been set fire to, still, if you have paid attention to their arrival, you will have observed that they came singly and retired singly; and thus their being altogether in the same field was merely accidental and caused by each one smelling the effluvia as he was soaring through the sky to look out for food. I have watched twenty come into a cane-field; they arrived one by one, and from different parts of the heavens. Hence we may conclude that, though the other species of vulture are gregarious, the aura vulture is not.

If you dissect a vulture that has just been feeding on carrion, you must expect that your olfactory nerves will be somewhat offended with the rank effluvia from his craw; just as they would be were you to dissect a citizen after the Lord Mayor's dinner. If, on the contrary, the vulture be empty at the time you commence the operation, there will be no offensive smell, but a strong scent of musk.

I had long wished to examine the native haunts of the cayman, but as the River Demerara did not afford a specimen of the large kind, I was obliged to go to the River Essequibo to look for one.