railroads also, not less than the winds of heaven, are their friends,
the fatal cow-catcher being an ever-busy caterer. The buzzards are, of
course, under such circumstances, warm advocates of internal improvement
and welcome the opening of every new railway. Their ardor in this
respect, however, has of late years been damped by the building of wire
fences along the track, an interference with vested rights and an
assault upon the hoary claims of infant industries against which in
their solemn assemblies they doubtless often condole with each other.
Unfortunately for their cause, they cannot lobby.

Somehow, there seems to be always a wag or clown among each group of
animals,--some one species in which the amusing or the grotesque is
prominent. Among these clownish fellows I should class the black
vulture, or john-crow. He is not a crow at all, but gets that name
probably because so historic a tribe as Corvus must have some
representative, and the real crow, so common at the North, is one of the
few birds that are not much seen in this quarter. John unites in his
ways at once fuss and business. He alternates oddly between bustle and
gravity. Seated stately and motionless for hours on a leafless tree, he
will suddenly, as if struck by a new idea, start off on a tour that
might have been dictated by telegram. He does not sail and circle like
his friend and comrade, never being distracted by soaring pretensions,
but goes straight to his object. His flight is a regular succession of
short flaps, with quiescent intervals between the series. The flaps are
usually four, sometimes five or six. I am sure he counts them. You have
seen a pursy gentleman in black hurrying along the street and tapping
his boot with a cane, as though keeping time. Fancy this gentleman in
the air, dressed in feathers, his coat-skirt sheared off alarmingly
short and square, and looking like a cherub in jet, all head and
wings,--although John is not exactly a cherub in his habits. A white