of the Californian species may yet be found quite equal
to the largest of the South American birds.

"The Californian vulture has been seen as far north as the thirty-ninth
parallel of latitude. He is common in some parts of Oregon, where he
makes his nest in the tops of the tallest trees, constructing it of
coarse thorny twigs and brambles, somewhat after the manner of eagles.
As many of the great spruce and pine-trees of Oregon and California are
three hundred feet in height, and twenty feet thick at the base, this
vulture is almost as secure among their tops as the condor on his
mountain summit; but to render himself doubly safe, he always selects
such trees as overhang inaccessible cliffs or rapid rivers. The female
lays only two eggs, which are nearly jet-black, and as large as those of
a goose; and the young, like those of the condor, are for many weeks
covered with down instead of feathers. Like other vultures, the food of
this species is carrion or dead fish; but he will follow after wounded
deer and other animals, and commence devouring them as soon as they have
dropped; and a score of these birds will devour the carcass of a deer,
or even of a horse or mule, in about one hour's time, leaving nothing
but a well-cleaned skeleton! While eating, they are strong enough and
bold enough to keep at a distance wolves, dogs, and all such animals as
may attempt to share with them.

"Perhaps no bird of the vulture species is so shy and wary as this one.
Except when he is gorged with eating, he will never allow the hunter to
approach within shot; and even then, his thick heavy plumage renders him
most difficult to be killed. His wings are full and long, and his
flight is most graceful and easy, not unlike that of his congener the
turkey-buzzard.

"I have said," continued Lucien, "that naturalists make out five species
of American vultures. The remaining two, the turkey-buzzard and black
vulture, or, as he is sometimes called, the `carrion-crow,' we have
already had before us; but, I believe, there are more than five species
on the continent of America. There is a bird in Guayana called the
`gavilucho,' which I believe to be a vulture differing from all these;
and, moreover, I do not think that the `red-headed gallinazo' of South
America is the same as the turkey-buzzard of the north. He is, more
probably, a distinct species of _cathartes_; for, although he resembles
the turkey-buzzard in shape and size, his pluma