1334.] CARRION- VULTURES. 185 



wings. Under the same circumstances, it would have been quite 

 impossible to have deceived a dog-. The evidence in favour of and 

 against the acute smelling powers of carrion- vultures is singu- 

 larly balanced. Professor Owen has demonstrated that the olfac- 

 tory nerves of the turkey-buzzard (Cathartes aura) are highly 

 developed ; and on the evening when Mr. Owen's paper was read 

 at the Zoological Society, it was mentioned by a gentleman that 

 he had seen the carrion-hawks in the West Indies on two occa- 

 sions collect on the roof of a house, when a corpse had become 

 offensive from not having been buried : in this case, the intelli- 

 gence could hardly have been acquired by sight. On the other 

 hand, besides the experiments of Audubon and that one by my- 

 self, Mr. Bachman has tried in the United States many varied 

 plans, showing that neither the turkey -buzzard (the species dis- 

 sected by Professor Owen) nor the gallinazo find their food by 

 smell. He covered portions of highly offensive offal with a thin 

 canvass cloth, and strewed pieces of meat on it ; these the carrion- 

 vultures ate up, and then remained quietly standing, with their 

 beaks within the eighth of an inch of the putrid mass, without dis- 

 covering it. A small rent was made in the canvass, and the offal 

 was immediately discovered ; the canvass was replaced by a fresh 

 piece, and meat again put on it, and was again devoured by the 

 vultures without their discovering the hidden mass on which they 

 were trampling. These facts are attested by the signatures of 

 six gentlemen, besides that of Mr. Bachman.* 



Often when lying down to rest on the open plains, on looking 

 upwards, I have seen carrion-hawks sailing through the air at a 

 great height. Where the country is level I do not believe a 

 space of the heavens, of more than fifteen degrees above the ho- 

 rizon, is commonly viewed with any attention by a person either 

 walking or on horseback. If such be the case, and the vulture 

 is on the wing at a height of between three and four thousand 

 "feet, before it could come within the range of vision, its distance 

 in a straight line from the beholder's eye, would be rather more 

 than two British miles. Might it not thus readily be over- 

 looked? When an animal is killed by the sportsman in a lonely 

 valley, may he not all the while be watched from above by the 

 sharp-sighted bird ? And will not the manner of its descent 

 * Loudon's Magazine of Nat. Hist., vol. vii. 



