Emily Dickinson Lexicon

VUL'TUR, or VUL'TURE, n. [L. vultur.]

The first of these words is the natural history name of a genus of Accipitrine fowls, and the second its English proper name. Vultures have a large and strong beak –, the nostrils pierced transversely to its base; the head and neck without feathers, or caruncles, and a collar of long feathers, or of down, at the root of the neck. Proper vultures have hitherto been found only on the eastern continent . – Cuvier.