Wild Life Near Home

by Dallas Lore Sharp

"I once found a nest," a correspondent writes, "in a low, thick mat of briers and grape-vines. The female was brooding her eggs when I came upon the nest, and the moment she caught sight of me, instead of trying to defend her treasures as any normal mother would have done, she turned like a demon upon her nest, thrust her beak into one of her eggs, and devoured it before I could scare her off."

This unnatural act is thus far without parallel in my observation of bird life. But it is only testimony of what one may read in the appearance of the buzzard. The indolent habits, the unnamable tastes, have demoralized and unmothered the creature.

I cannot think that the buzzard was so depraved back in the Beautiful Garden. The curse of Adam is on him; but instead of sweating like the rest of us and so redeeming himself, he is content to be cursed. The bird has degenerated. You can see in his countenance that originally he was not so vicious in taste and habit. If, when this office of scavenger was created, the buzzard was installed, it was because he was too lazy and too indifferent to refuse. He may have protested and sulked; he even continues to protest and sulk: but he has been engaged so long in the business now that he is utterly incapable of earning a living in any other way.

I saw all this in the face and attitude of the buzzard on the stake above me. He sat there as if conscious that a scavenger's life was beneath a bird of his parts; he looked mad with himself for submitting to a trade so degrading, mad with his position among the birds: but long ago he recognized the difficulty of changing his place and manner of life, and, rather than make the effort, he sank into this state of soured silence.

That this is the way to read his personal record and the history of his clan is clear to my mind, because the bird is still armed with the great talons and beak of the eagles. He was once a hunter. Through generations of disuse these weapons have become dulled, weakened, and unfit for the hunt; and the buzzard, instead of struggling for his quarry, is driven to eat a dinner that every other predatory bird would refuse.

Another proof of his fall is that at this late day he has a decided preference for fresh food. This was doubtless the unspoiled taste of his ancestors, given with the beak and talons. He is a glutton and a coward, else he would be an eagle still.

We associate the turkey-buzzard with carrion, and naturally attribute his marvelous power of finding food to his sense of smell. Let a dead animal be dragged into the field, and in less than an hour there will be scores of these somber creatures gathered about it, when, in all the reach of the horizon for perhaps a week past, not more than one or two have been seen at any one time. Did they detect an odor miles away and follow the scent hither? Possibly. But yonder you spy a buzzard sailing so far up that he appears no larger than a swallow. He is descending. Watch where he settles. Lo! he is eating the garter-snake that you killed in the path a few minutes ago. How did the bird from that altitude discover so tiny a thing? He could not have smelled it, for it had no odor. He saw it. It is not by scent, but by his astonishing powers of sight, that the buzzard finds his food.

"Floating without effort among the clouds."