Catesby's Tropic-Bird

old stock had been sold from the cattle ranges of Avery Island and adjacent prairies, there were very few animals that died during the winter. Therefore, the food of the Black Vulture, Coragyps atratus (Meyer) was scarce. I maintain, at Avery Island, two deer parks of about thirty acres each, and a thirty-five acre breeding ground for nutria (Myocastor bonariensis). I fed both the deer and nutria chopped sweet potatoes during the past winter. The feed was usually put into the feeding troughs in the early morning. The man in charge of the feeding reported that a number of Black Vultures came to each of the feeding places every morning and ate up quite a quantity of the chopped-up sweet potatoes. This feeding habit of the vultures was so unusual that it was difficult for me to believe, so I spent several mornings watching the troughs. I found that the vultures gathered at the feeding places before the food was put out and, as soon as it was spread in the troughs for both the nutria and the deer, the vultures would alight on the troughs and rapidly eat a large portion of it. I did not pay much attention to this depredation by the vultures until the man in charge of the feeding advised me that the vultures were coming in such numbers each morning that the deer and nutria were getting only a small portion of the food put out for them. I then had the feeding time changed from morning to after sundown, and this change in time, to a large extent, overcame the trouble. E. A. MclLHENNY, Avery Island, Louisiana.