The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-08-02
cARR1oN BIRDS OF CUBA,
Hideous Turkey BuzZards That Are
 AUiae ,P tho ArpNV

Allies of the Army.
 A feature of campaigning in Cuba which has inspired the soldier from the north with horror and disgust is the presence of the huge turkey buz2ards on the battlefields This bird is per- haps in appearance and habits the most loathsome creature of the air known to this continent. It is of right Vulture, stands about two and one-halt feet high, and is of a lustrous proWnlsh black plumage. The hideous part or the bird is it's head and neck, naked of plumage and reddish, like raw flesh Below this is a circular ruff of feathers, which seems to accentuate the revolt ing appearance of the neck, The bill is long and slender, with powerful, curved tip for tearing flesh
 Carrion is the food of the turkey bug gard, though it will eat fresh meat, and when in force, will even kill small ami mals or birds. But American soldiers in Cuba, with their dead lying in the third underbrush, know too well what the approach of these vultures means, and for them the nauseous birds form the chief horror of the war In letter to friend in this city, written after the fighting at Baiquiri, one of the Rough Riders tells of watching the bur zards come, and shooting at them as they settled down to their feast. One of his company, he adds, who fought a bravely as the rest during the battle, went into a hysterical fit at the ap- proach of one of the birds, and covered away from it, crying like a child. 9th CT instances of the soldiers shooting at the buzzards and killing or driving them away have been related.
 Yet there is much to be said on the side of the carrion birds. They are our best allies, and as soon as the battle is over then work of sanitation begins. In that hot climate death turks in the dead and reaches forth for the living. Close behind death in battle waits death by pestilence, ready to claim more victims than shot and shell. 1t is here that the vultures perform their part, terrible to think of, but very ne- cessary to the army's veal, After the battle, friend or foe lie dead together in the all but impenetrable chaparral. What the burial parties cannot find in that tangled underwood, the instinct of the vulture discovers. Far away in the sky distance a black spot appears, grows larger, and sails along on mo- tionless wings until presently it settles down to earth. Others follow, gather ing from all parts of the compass. They settle in little bands of six or eight or even a dozen, and when they have risen, instead of the intolerable and horrible residue of humanity which lay in the brush, a menace of pesti- lence, there remains only skeleton to Whiten in the sun and rain.
 All through the south the worth of the turkey buzzard as a scavenger is well understood. Laws are in force protecting these birds, and any one shooting them or wantonly disturbing them is fined In the smaller towns they are the street cleaning depart- ment, and even in cities like Charleston they stalk about the streets unmolested and uttering their harsh, hissing note New Jersey is as far north as the get on the Atlantic coast, but the southern states teem with them, and in Cuba they have multiplied rapidly in the last two years Hideous and foul as they and their ways are, the northern sol- dier who shoots them unwittingly com niits an offence against the whole army of invasion, for if there were no turkey buzzards in Cuba many a good Ameri- can who will return home to tell of his part in the war would leave his bones for testimonial to a. more deadly foe than the Spanish.-Chicago Inter- Ocean.