276 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



Art. I. Retrospective Criticism. 



The Vulture's Nose. [p. 165 — 169.] — The American phi- 

 losophers have signed a solemn certificate that they feel 

 assured that the two species of vultures which inhabit the 

 United States " are guided to their food altogether through 

 their sense of sight, and not that of smell" [p. 169.] : I, on 

 the contrary [V. 233—241., VI. 163 — 171.], that all vultures 

 can find their food through the medium of their olfactory 

 nerves, though it be imperceptible to their eye. 



I cannot consent to deprive the vultures of their noses 

 merely on the strength of experiments which, from circum- 

 stances, may prove fallacious, notwithstanding every possible 

 precaution ; and, in the cases before us, I find myself con- 

 strained to dispute the legitimacy of the deductions at which 

 these gentlemen calculate they have arrived. The effluvium 

 from the dead hare and the offal which they had procured 

 might have been prevented from ascending by the covering of 

 brushwood ; or it might have been depressed to the earth by 

 humidity, or by a current of wind. Either of these sug- 

 gestions may be adopted in the present instance, because the 

 dogs, which had no tainted footsteps to guide them, still 

 found that which insured their discovery of the carrion. 



The sad experiment of putting out the poor vulture's eyes 

 fills me with distressing emotions. The supposed fact of the 

 tortured captive not smelling his favourite food, when placed 

 within an inch of his nostrils, forces us to conclude, either 

 that Nature had not intended that his beautifully developed 

 organs of scent should be of the least service to him, or that 

 the intensity of pain totally incapacitated the lone prisoner 

 from touching food. 1 am of the latter opinion. Un- 

 questionably the pain caused by the dreadful operation ren- 

 dered the miserable sufferer indifferent to all kind of 

 sustenance. I myself have been unable to eat when in the 

 gripes; and I once knew an old owl which died of sheer 

 want, rather than swallow any thing in captivity. What 

 would the American philosophers think of me, had I got this 

 ow?s demise well authenticated by the signatures of divers 

 scientific men, and then despatched it across the Atlantic, in 

 order to prove that owls do not secure their prey by means 



