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ds are common in Louisiana, and throughout all the southern part of the United States. I have said that a careless observer would mistake the one species for the other. They are nearly of the same size and colour, though the carrion-crow is of a deeper black than the buzzard; but there are other points of difference that would strike the eye of a naturalist at once. The buzzard is a much more handsomely formed bird, and is more graceful, both upon the ground and while sailing through the air. His wings are longer and more elegantly plumed, and his tail is more tapering. The skin of his naked head and neck, as well as that of his legs, is of a reddish or flesh colour; while the same parts of the black vulture are a mixture of black and grey--the black being caused by a down that grows thinly over the skin. They are easily distinguished in the air. The black vulture flies rather heavily--flapping his wings several times with a quick repetition, and then holding them horizontally for a hundred yards or so--while his short ill-proportioned tail is spread out like a fan. The buzzard, on the contrary, holds his wings at rest--not in a horizontal position, but bent considerably upward. In this attitude he will skim along for a quarter of a mile, without a single stroke of his wings, and that, too, not downward as may be supposed, but along a level, or a line often curving upward! How he executes this upward movement is not known. Some suppose that he possesses the power of inflating himself with heated air, which enables him to soar upward without using his wings. This theory is not very clear, and requires demonstration before it can be accepted as the true one. Others say that he is carried up by the impetus he has already obtained, by having previously descended from an equal or greater height. This is not true, however, as the buzzard may be often seen to rise in this way after a long flight along the level line. It is just possible that the same principle by which the New Holland savages direct their boomerangs, or by which flat stones thrown horizontally often take an upward direction--a fact known to every boy--I say it is just possible that this principle, as yet but little understood, may be instructively acted on by the buzzard, and have something to do with his flight. Be the facts as they may, it is an interesting sight to watch one of these birds, with broad wings outlined against the blue background
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