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Updated: June 8, 2025
"The plain of Cumana," saya Humboldt, "presents a remarkable phenomenon, after heavy rains. The moistened earth, when heated by the rays of the sun, diffuses the musky odor common in the torrid zone to animals of very different classes, to the jaguar, the small species of tiger-cat, the cabiai, the gallinazo vulture, the crocodile, the viper, and the rattlesnake.
To these observations I may add, on the high authority of Azara, that the Carrancha feeds on worms, shells, slugs, grasshoppers, and frogs; that it destroys young lambs by tearing the umbilical cord; and that it pursues the Gallinazo, till that bird is compelled to vomit up the carrion it may have recently gorged.
In this list may be included four species of the Caracara or Polyborus, the Turkey buzzard, the Gallinazo, and the Condor. The Caracaras are, from their structure, placed among the eagles: we shall soon see how ill they become so high a rank.
The young crocodiles are often attacked, and have their eyes pecked out, by the small gallinazo or "zamuro" vultures just in the same way that we have seen one of a larger size become the victim of the more powerful king vultures. After many days of rafting our travellers arrived in a most singular country.
If an animal dies on the plain the Gallinazo commences the feast, and then the two species of Polyborus pick the bones clean. These birds, although thus commonly feeding together, are far from being friends.
"Good-bye, old ship," he exclaimed, as he headed his craft toward the west the direction in which the gallinazo had flown and in which he judged land must lie. To his delight the patent wheel worked perfectly.
Heaven knows what we might have become in that tiny plantation, for I was sick of life, and the mosquitos and flying ants, and the chattering parroquets, the grim gallinazo, and the quatre, or native bed a wooden frame and canvas; but one day at Kingston I met a man, one Cassandro Biatt, who had an obsession for adventure, and he spoke to me privately.
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