A BUZZARDS' BANQUET

Is there anything ugly out of doors? Can the ardent, sympathetic lover of nature ever find her unlovely? We know that she is supremely utilitarian, and we have only wonder and worship for her prodigal and perfect economy. But does she always couple beauty with her utility?

To her real lover nature is never tiresome nor uninteresting; but often she is most fascinating when veiled. She has moods and tempers and habits, even physical blemishes, that are frequently discovered to the too pressing suitor; and though these may quicken his interest and faith, they often dissipate that halo of perfection with which first fancy clothed her. This intimacy, this "seeing the very pulse of the machine," is what spoils poets like Burroughs and Thoreau: spoils them for poets to make them the truer philosophers.

Like the spots on the sun, all of nature's other blemishes disappear in the bright blaze of her loveliness when viewed through a veil, whether of shadows, or mists, or distance. This is half the secret of the spell of the night, of the mystery of the sea, and the enchantment of an ancient forest. From the depths of a bed in the meadow-grass there is perfection of motion, the very soul of poetry, in the flight of a buzzard far up under the blue dome of the sky; but look at the same bald-headed, snaky-necked creature upon a fence-stake, and you wonder how leagues into the clouds ever hid his ugly visage from you. Melrose must be seen by moonlight. The light to see the buzzard in has never been on land or sea, has come no nearer than the high white clouds that drift far away in the summer sky.

From an economic point of view the buzzard is an admirable creation. So are the robin, the oriole, and most other birds; but these are admirable also from the esthetic point of view. Not so the buzzard. He has the wings of Gabriel—the wings only; for, truly, his neck and head are Lucifer's. If ugliness be an attribute of nature, then this bird is its expression incarnate. Not that he is wicked, but worse than wicked—repulsive. Now the jackal is a mean, sordid scamp, a miserable half-dog beast, a degenerate that has not fallen far, since he was never up very high. The buzzard, on the other hand, was a bird. What he is now is unnamable. He has fallen back below the reptiles, into a harpy with snake's head and bird's body—a vulture more horrid than any mythical monster.

Having once seen a turkey-buzzard feeding, one has no difficulty in accounting for the origin of those "angry creations of the gods" that defiled the banquets of King Phineus. If there is any holiness of beauty, surely the turkey-buzzard with clipped wing is the most unholy, the most utterly lost soul in the world.

One bright, warm day in January—a frog-waking day in southern New Jersey—I saw the buzzards in unusual numbers sailing over the pines beyond Cubby Hollow. Hoping for a glimpse of something social in the silent, unemotional solitaries, I hurried over to the pines, and passing through the wood, found a score of the birds feasting just beyond the fence in an open field.

Creeping up close to the scene, I quietly hid in a big drift of leaves and corn-blades that the winds had piled in a corner of the worm-fence, and became an uninvited guest at the strangest, gruesomest assemblage ever gathered—a buzzards' banquet.

The silence of the nether world wrapped this festive scene. Like ugly shades from across the Styx came the birds, deepening the stillness with their swishing wings. It was an unearthly picture: the bare, stub-stuck corn-field, the gloomy pines, the silent, sullen buzzards in the yellow winter sunlight!

The buzzards were stalking about when I arrived, all deliberately fighting for a place and a share of the spoil. They made no noise; and this dumb semblance of battle heightened the unearthliness of the scene. As they lunged awkwardly about, the ends of their over-long wings dragged the ground, and they tripped and staggered like drunken sailors on shore. The hobbling hitch of seals on land could not be less graceful than the strut of these fighting buzzards. They scuffled as long as there was a scrap to fight for, wordless and bloodless, not even a feather being disturbed, except those that rose with anger, as the hair rises on a dog's back. But the fight was terrible in its uncanniness.

Upon the fence and in the top of a dead oak near by others settled, and passed immediately into a state of semi-consciousness that was almost a stupor. Gloomy and indifferent they sat, hunched up with their heads between their shoulders, perfectly oblivious of all mundane things. There was no sign of recognition between the birds until they dropped upon the ground and began fighting. Let a crow join a feeding group of its fellows, and there will be considerable cawing; even a sparrow, coming into a flock, will create some chirping: but there was not so much as the twist of a neck when a new buzzard joined or left this assemblage. Each bird sat as if he were at the center of the Sahara Desert, as though he existed alone, with no other buzzard on the earth.

There was no hurry, no excitement anywhere; even the struggle on the ground was measured and entirely wooden. None of the creatures on the fence showed any haste to fall to feeding. After alighting they would go through the long process of folding up their wings and packing them against their sides; then they would sit awhile as if trying to remember why they had come here rather than gone to any other place. Occasionally one would unfold his long wings by sections, as you would open a jointed rule, pause a moment with them outstretched, and, with a few ponderous flaps, sail off into the sky without having tasted the banquet. Then another upon the ground, having feasted, would run a few steps to get spring, and bounding heavily into the air, would smite the earth with his too long wings, and go swinging up above the trees. As these grew small and disappeared in the distance, others came into view, mere specks among the clouds, descending in ever-diminishing circles until they settled, without word or greeting, with their fellows at the banquet.

The fence was black with them. Evidently there is news that spreads even among these incommunicative ghouls. Soon one settled upon the fence-stake directly over me. To dive from the clouds at the frightful rate of a mile a minute, and, with those mighty wings, catch the body in the invisible net of air about the top of a fence-stake, is a feat that stops one's breath to see. No matter if, here within my reach, his suit of black looked rusty; no matter if his beak was a sickly, milky white, his eyes big and watery, and wrinkled about his small head and snaky neck was red, bald skin, making a visage as ugly as could be made without human assistance. In spite of all this, I looked upon him with wonder; for I had seen him mark this slender pole from the clouds, and hurl himself toward it as though to drive it through him, and then, between these powerful wings, light as softly upon the point as a sleeping babe is laid upon a pillow from its mother's arms.

Perhaps half a hundred now were gathered in a writhing heap upon the ground. A banquet this sans toasts and cheer—the very soul of the unconvivial. It was a strange dumb-show in serious reality, rather than a banquet. In the stir of their scuffling, the dry clashing of their wings, and the noise of their tumbling and pulling and pecking as they moved together, I could hear low, serpent-like hisses. Except for a sort of half-heard guttural croak at rare intervals, these hisses were the only utterances that broke the silence. So far as I know, this sibilant, batrachio-reptilian language is the meager limit of the buzzard's faculty of vocal expression. With croak and hiss he warns and woos. And what tender emotion has a buzzard too subtle for expression by a croak or hiss? And if he hates, what need has he of words—with such a countenance?

But he does not hate, for he does not love. To be able to hate implies a soul; and the buzzard has no soul. Laziness, gluttony, uncleanness, have destroyed everything spiritual in him. He has almost lost his language, so that now, even among his own kind, except when surprised, he is silent. But he needs no language, for he is not companionable; there is no trace of companionableness in his nature. He seems entirely devoid of affection and fellow-feeling, showing no interest whatever in any one or anything save his stomach. The seven evil spirits of the dyspeptic possess him, body and soul.

It must be added, however, that the buzzards are to some extent gregarious. They often fly together, roost together, and nest in communities. In this latter fact some naturalists would find evidence of sociability; but this manner of nesting is not their habit. They more generally nest a single pair to a swamp. When they nest in communities, it is rather because the locality is suitable than from any desire to be together. Yet they frequently choose the same dead tree, or clump of trees, for a roost, which may mean that even in a buzzard's bosom there is something that calls for companionship.

For a nesting-place the buzzard selects a swamp or remote and heavy timber where there is slight chance of molestation. Here, in a rough nest of sticks and leaves, upon the ground, in a hollow log, upon a stump, or sometimes upon the bare earth, are laid the two long, brown-blotched eggs that constitute the complement.

"I once found a nest," a correspondent writes, "in a low, thick mat of briers and grape-vines. The female was brooding her eggs when I came upon the nest, and the moment she caught sight of me, instead of trying to defend her treasures as any normal mother would have done, she turned like a demon upon her nest, thrust her beak into one of her eggs, and devoured it before I could scare her off."

This unnatural act is thus far without parallel in my observation of bird life. But it is only testimony of what one may read in the appearance of the buzzard. The indolent habits, the unnamable tastes, have demoralized and unmothered the creature.

I cannot think that the buzzard was so depraved back in the Beautiful Garden. The curse of Adam is on him; but instead of sweating like the rest of us and so redeeming himself, he is content to be cursed. The bird has degenerated. You can see in his countenance that originally he was not so vicious in taste and habit. If, when this office of scavenger was created, the buzzard was installed, it was because he was too lazy and too indifferent to refuse. He may have protested and sulked; he even continues to protest and sulk: but he has been engaged so long in the business now that he is utterly incapable of earning a living in any other way.

I saw all this in the face and attitude of the buzzard on the stake above me. He sat there as if conscious that a scavenger's life was beneath a bird of his parts; he looked mad with himself for submitting to a trade so degrading, mad with his position among the birds: but long ago he recognized the difficulty of changing his place and manner of life, and, rather than make the effort, he sank into this state of soured silence.

That this is the way to read his personal record and the history of his clan is clear to my mind, because the bird is still armed with the great talons and beak of the eagles. He was once a hunter. Through generations of disuse these weapons have become dulled, weakened, and unfit for the hunt; and the buzzard, instead of struggling for his quarry, is driven to eat a dinner that every other predatory bird would refuse.

Another proof of his fall is that at this late day he has a decided preference for fresh food. This was doubtless the unspoiled taste of his ancestors, given with the beak and talons. He is a glutton and a coward, else he would be an eagle still.

We associate the turkey-buzzard with carrion, and naturally attribute his marvelous power of finding food to his sense of smell. Let a dead animal be dragged into the field, and in less than an hour there will be scores of these somber creatures gathered about it, when, in all the reach of the horizon for perhaps a week past, not more than one or two have been seen at any one time. Did they detect an odor miles away and follow the scent hither? Possibly. But yonder you spy a buzzard sailing so far up that he appears no larger than a swallow. He is descending. Watch where he settles. Lo! he is eating the garter-snake that you killed in the path a few minutes ago. How did the bird from that altitude discover so tiny a thing? He could not have smelled it, for it had no odor. He saw it. It is not by scent, but by his astonishing powers of sight, that the buzzard finds his food.

One day I carried a freshly killed chicken into the field, and tying a long string to it, hid myself near by in a corn-shock. Soon a buzzard passing overhead began to circle about me; and I knew that he had discovered the chicken. Down he came, leisurely at first, spirally winding, as though descending some aËrial stairway from the clouds, till, just above the tree-tops, he began to swing like a great pendulum through the air, turning his head from side to side as he passed over the chicken, watching to see if it were alive. He was about to settle when I pulled the string. Up he darted in great fright. Again and again I repeated the experiment; and each time, at the least sign of life, the buzzard hurried off—afraid of so inoffensive a thing as a chicken!

Quite a different story comes to me from Pennsylvania. My correspondent writes: "Years ago, while I was at school in De Kalb, Mississippi, all the children had their attention called to a great commotion in a chicken-yard next the school-house. It appeared that a large hawk had settled down and was doing battle with a hen. My brother left the school-house and ran to the yard, cautiously opened the gate, slipped up behind, and caught the 'hawk'—which proved to be a large and almost famished turkey-buzzard. He kept it four or five days, when it died." Extreme hunger might drive a buzzard to attack a hen; but rare indeed is such boldness nowadays.

There were by this time fully a hundred buzzards about me, some coming, some going, some sitting moody and disgusted, while others picked hungrily among the bones. They had no suspicion of my presence, but I had grown tired of them, and springing suddenly from the leaves, I stood in their midst. There was consternation and hissing for an instant, then a violent flapping of wings, and away they flew in every direction. Their heavy bodies were quickly swung above the trees, and soon they were all sailing away beyond the reach of straining eyes. Presently one came over far up in the blue, floating without effort among the clouds, now wheeling in great circles, now swinging through immense arcs, sailing with stately grandeur on motionless wings in flight that was sublime.