The Boy Hunters, Mayne Reid [best love novels of all time .TXT] 📗
- Author: Mayne Reid
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“Now, it is very evident that birds, or any other wild animals, possessing a secure place, both to bring forth their young or escape to in time of danger, will not easily be extirpated. It is because their places of breeding and retreat are accessible—not only to man but to hosts of other enemies—that such creatures as eagles and the like are so scarce. Not so with the condor. His race can never become extinct so long as the Andes exist; and that is likely to be for a good long period, I fancy.”
“What sort of nests do they build?” inquired François.
“They do not build nests,” replied Lucien, “they choose a cavity in the rocks, or in the soil around them, where they lay two large white oval eggs, and hatch them just as other vultures do. Strange to say, very little is known of their mode of life in their elevated haunts; but this is because the natives of the Sierras rarely venture up to the high regions where the condors dwell. All they know of them is what they see, when these great birds descend upon the plateaux, or inhabited mountain-valleys, in search of food—which they do only in the mornings and evenings. During mid-day the condor usually perches upon some high rock, and there goes to sleep. When pressed by hunger, they sometimes extend their range down to the hot coast lands of the Pacific Ocean; but they are evidently birds that can bear cold much better than heat.
“The King-vulture,” continued Lucien, “is the next species that claims our attention. He is also a Sarcoramph (Sarcoramphus Papa), and the only one of that genus besides the condor. He is unlike the condor in many respects. He is not much of a mountain bird, but prefers the low savannas and open plains. He prefers heat to cold, and he is rarely met with outside the tropics, although he makes occasional visits to the peninsula of Florida and the northern plains of Mexico; but in these places he is only a rare and migratory bird. He feeds principally upon carrion, and dead fish that have been left by the drying-up of ponds and lakes; but he will also kill and eat serpents, lizards, and small mammiferous animals. Bartram states that in Florida he only appears after the savannas have been on fire, when he is seen to pass over the ground amidst the black ashes, hunting for and devouring the snakes and lizards that have been killed by the fire. Bartram, therefore, infers that his food must consist altogether of roasted reptiles; but as it would be sometimes difficult for him to procure a supply of these ready-cooked, I think we may safely conclude that he does not object to eating them raw. The fanciful ideas of these old naturalists are sometimes very amusing from their very absurdity.
“The king-vultures live in pairs as eagles do—though they are often seen in flocks, when a carcass or some other object has brought them together.
“This bird has been called the ‘painted’ vulture on account of the brilliant colours upon his head and neck, which do, in fact, present the appearance of the most vivid painting. He derives his name of a ‘King-vulture,’ not from the possession of any noble qualities, but from the manner in which he tyrannises over the common vultures (aura and atratus), keeping them from their food until he has gorged himself with the choicest morsels. In this sense the name is most appropriate; as such conduct presents a striking analogy to that of most human kings, towards the common people.
“Next to the condor in size,” continued the naturalist, “and, perhaps, quite equal to him, is the great Californian vulture—the ‘condor of the north.’ He is classed among the purging-vultures (Cathartes Californianus). This bird may be called black, as he is nearly of that hue all over the body; although some of the secondary wing feathers are white at the tips, and the coverts are brown. Black, however, is the prevailing colour of the bird. His naked head and neck is reddish; but he wants the crest or comb, which the condors and king-vultures have. On the posterior part of his neck, long lance-shaped feathers form a sort of ruff or collar, as in other birds of this kind.
“The Californian vulture derives his name from the country which he inhabits—the great chain of the Californian mountains—the Sierra Nevada—which extends almost without interruption through twenty degrees of latitude. That he sometimes visits the Rocky Mountains, and their kindred the Cordilleras of the Sierra Madre in Mexico, there can be little doubt. A large bird occasionally seen among these mountains, and pronounced to be the condor, is far more likely to have been the Californian vulture. As far as size is concerned, this mistake might easily be made, for the latter bird is nearly, if not quite, as large as the former. A specimen of the Californian vulture has been measured, which proved to be four feet eight inches in length, and nine feet eight inches between the tips of the wings! Now, this is actually larger than the average size of the condors; and it is not improbable, therefore, that individuals 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 plumage appears to me of a purer black, and the skin of his head, neck, and legs, of a much more vivid red—having an appearance as if these parts had been painted. I think naturalists will yet discover, that besides the great Californian vulture, there are three if not four species of the smaller cathartes.”
So much for the vultures of America.
Our young travellers had now arrived upon the great buffalo-path. Without halting, they turned their horses to the right, and followed the trail. It led directly towards the north, and they had no difficulty in following it, as the prairie, for a tract of miles in width, was cut up by the hoofs of the animals; and, in some parts, where the ground was softer and more loamy, the surface presented the appearance of having been turned up by the plough! At other places the hard green turf had resisted the hoof, but even there the grass was so beaten down, that the trail was a perfectly plain one. Without troubling themselves about the direction, therefore, the little party rode briskly forward, full of hope that they would soon overtake the buffaloes. But their hopes were not so soon to be realised. These animals had gone upon their annual migration to the north; and as they were keeping almost continually upon the run—scarcely stopping to rest or pasture themselves—it would be no easy matter to come up with them. At night our travellers were obliged to diverge from the trail, in order to get grass for their horses; for, upon a belt of at least four miles in width which the buffaloes had passed over, not a blade of grass was left standing.
But another want now began to be felt by the party—one that filled them with serious apprehensions. At the end of the second day their stock of dried bear’s meat gave out—not an ounce of it was left—and they lay down upon the prairie supperless and hungry. What rendered the prospect still more disheartening, they were passing through a region entirely destitute of game—where no animal is ever seen except the buffaloes themselves, an occasional antelope, or the ever-present prairie-wolf. It was a region essentially desert in its character; although the dry plains were covered with a sward of the famous “buffalo-grass” (Sesleria dactyloides), which forms the favourite pasture of these wild cattle. As for the antelopes, they love these desert solitudes; as their free open range affords them an opportunity, from their superior fleetness, of escaping from every enemy. But in these parts they are more than usually shy; and although several of them were seen on the way, our hunters vainly endeavoured to approach within shooting distance of them. Wolves they could have shot; but they were not as yet prepared to satisfy their hunger upon the flesh of these filthy, fox-like, creatures. That large troops of wolves had gone forward, hanging after the great herd, was evident. Every now and then our hunters saw proof of this, in the clean-picked skeletons of buffaloes that lay along the path. These they knew were such as had got disabled and separated from the drove; for numerous accidents of this kind—owing to the bulls goring one another, or being enfeebled by age and disease—take place during the migration of the vast herds. Were it not so, the wolves would never think of following them as they do; for a buffalo in good health can scatter a whole pack of these cowardly, skulking jackals. But the average accidents which occur when such numbers of buffaloes are together—the prospect of old ones, weak
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