[Illustration: FIG. 138.--Screech-owl, _Megascops asio_. (Photograph by A. L. Princeton permission of Macmillan Co.)] =The eagles, owls, and vultures (Raptores).=--The "birds of prey" compose one of the larger orders, the members of which are readily recognizable. In all the bill is heavy, powerful, and strongly hooked at the tip. The feet are strong, with long, curved claws (small in the vultures) and are fitted for seizing and holding living prey, such as smaller birds, fish, reptiles, and mammals which constitute the principal food of the true raptorial species. The vultures feed on carrion. The turkey buzzard (_Cathartes aura_) is the most familiar of the three species of carrion-feeding Raptores found in the United States. The buzzard nests on the ground or in hollow stumps or logs, and lays two white eggs (sometimes only one) blotched with brown and purplish. The largest North American vulture is the California condor (_Pseudogryphus californianus_), which attains a length of four and one-half feet, with a spread of wing of nine and one-half feet. Of the eagles, the most widespread and commonest is the bald eagle (_Haliætus leucocephalus_). It is three feet long and when adult has the head and neck white. The golden eagle (_Aquila chrysætos_) has the neck and head tawny brown. Of the many species of hawks, the marsh harrier (_Circus hudsonius_), abundant all over the country and readily known by its white rump, is one of the most familiar. The name "chicken-hawk" is given to two or three different species of large broad-winged hawks of the genus _Buteo_. The stout little sparrow-hawk (_Falco sparverius_), common over the whole country, is familiar and readily recognizable by its pronounced bluish and black wings and black-and-white banded chestnut tail. Altogether fifty species of hawks and eagles are found in this country. Of the owls, the barn-owl (_Strix pratincola_) with its long triangular face and handsome mottled and spotted tawny coat is more or less familiar; the great horned owl (_Bubo virginianus_), the snowy owl (_Nyctea nyctea_), and the great gray owl (_Scotiaptex cinerea_) are the common large species, while the red screech-owl (_Megascops asio_) (fig. 138), the most abundant owl in the country, and the strange burrowing owl (_Speotyto cunicularia_), which lives in the holes of prairie-dogs and ground-squirrels in the West, are familiar smaller ones. Thirty-two species of owls are recorded from North America.