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