Vultures.
Monarch of the feathered tribes of the forest, the king vulture fears no rival throughout his wild domain. While the condor has its home on the mountain-tops, the sovereign of the vultures confines himself exclusively to the thickly-wooded regions along the banks of the rivers or lagoons, where he can more readily obtain the carcasses on which he feeds.
He is a magnificent bird, of about two feet and a half in length, and upwards of five feet across the expanded wings. The neck is brilliantly coloured of a fine lemon tint; both sides of the neck, from the ears downwards, are of a rich scarlet. The crown of the head is scarlet, and between the lower mandible and the eye, and close to the eye, there is a part which has a fine blue appearance; the skin which juts out behind the neck, like a carbuncle, is partly blue and partly orange. The bill is orange and black. Round the bottom of the neck is a broad ruff of soft, downy, ash-grey feathers, and the back and tail-coverts are of a bright lawn. The middle wing-coverts and tail-feathers are glossy black.
These superb birds may sometimes be seen seated in pairs on the topmost boughs of trees, but occasionally in large flocks. The great expanse and power of his wings enables the king vulture to soar to a prodigious height, whence he can survey with his piercing sight a wide extent of his domain; possibly also his exquisite sense of smell enables him to detect the odour of the putrefying carcass which rises through the pure air.
He is somewhat of a tyrant among his subjects; for not only will he allow no other vultures or carrion-feeding birds to approach the carcass he has selected, but on his appearance the other species, who may already have discovered it, fly to a distance, and stand meekly looking on while their sovereign gorges himself.
The king vulture makes his nest in the hollow of a tree, where his queen lays two eggs.
The Black Vulture.
The gallinaso, or black vulture (Cathartes atratus), acts the part of a scavenger, and as such is of great use throughout the whole centre of South America, as also in the northern continent. Disgusting as are its habits and appearance, it is carefully protected, on account of the service it renders to mankind.
It may easily be distinguished from the turkey-buzzard, which it greatly resembles, by the shape of the feathers round its neck, which descend from the back of the head towards the throat in a sloping direction; whereas those of the turkey-buzzard form a ring round the throat. Its general colour is