Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 September 1887 — Buzzards in Charleston. [ARTICLE]

Buzzards in Charleston.

Well do I recall a visit made early in the morning to the city market one year ago, and my surprise to see such Hocks of these ungainly birds hopping about, picking up the scraps. The "market-keeper, hot ie ng my interest,, I communicated to me muTvelOtis stories i of their intelligence, and what I then, 1 saw was really corroborativeJn part of his story. Tlie birds were collected on the peaked roof of the market-house, and they did not seem 4o be in any -hHri'v to eome down to the street to gather the scraps t of meat which the butchers had rejected. I asked him why they, did not—were they afraid? “He hasn’t come yet, sur!” “Who?’’ . the inspector, sur. Them buzzards don't dare touch nothin’ till he inspects,” and presently he spoke up, “Here he comes,” and I looked up the street, marveling much what kind of a yarn I was getting, for what had a market inspector to do with a lot of carrion birds ? My confidence xvas fast vanishing. “Not there, sur, up there; don’t,you see him?” All I saw in the direction he indicated was a few buzzards fix ing toward the market. “That’s him—watch him.” I saw a buzzard alight on the roof, and the color of his head was different. It vras reddish, and I did see this fellow hop around then down he came to the street, and presently the whole of the flock followed. The market man, jstill pointing out the “inspector,” suggested to me that if I would buy some mga-t at a neighboring stall he would show me how fame they were, and perhaps they suspected that I came from a land where man was not on friendly terms with the buzzard family. “Them birds,” said he, “knows morn some'men; they knOM;s the day of the week, and when Sunday comes just like a Christian, i and up at the slaughter pens they can piefi out the fat cattle and wait for hini.” The scraps of meat being purchased, lie selected two of the toughest chunkh and tied them at-each-end of a string about six feet long, casting this in tlie street. The birds fougirt in . bunches for the chunks, one trying to pull ope nay, am?, flier the “other way; thev would hold the cord with their feet like a dog, till finally one more courageous or hungry than the rest swallowed ope chunk, the string hanging out of his mouth; the rest tugged at the other chunk of meat, onr gourmand braced himself and tried to- keep his chunk where it xvas doing him the most good, but his grip was not strong enough; he could not, bite off the string. A strain at the cord by the other side a distended neck. “He's lost it,” cried the market man—and the much-coveted morsel returned to terra firma, to be once more fought for, and so this black, unsavory cpnjpany of birds, hopping , sideways, jostling each other with their distended wings, fought and quarreled for their breakfast, -r Cor. Baltimore Bay.