\6i Retrospective Criticism. 



I will now proceed to examine the author's first experiment. 

 " I procured," says he, " a skin of our common deer, entire to 

 the hoofs, and stuffed it carefully with dried grass until filled, 

 rather above the natural size, — suffered the whole to become 

 perfectly dry, and hard as leather, — took it to the middle of a 

 large open field, laid it down on its back, with its legs up and 

 apart, as if the animal was dead and putrid. I then retired 

 about a few hundred yards ; and in the lapse of some minutes 

 a vulture, coursing round the field, tolerably high, espied the 

 skin, sailed directly towards it, and alighted within a few 

 yards of it. I ran immediately, covered by a large tree, until 

 within about forty yards ; and from that place could spy the 

 bird with ease. He approached the skin, looked at it without 

 apparent suspicion, jumped on it, &c. — then, approaching the 

 eyes, that were here solid globes of hard dried and painted 

 clay, attacked first one and then the other, with, however, no 

 further advantage than that of disarranging them. This part 

 was abandoned ; the bird walked to the other extremity of 

 the pretended animal, and there, with much exertion, tore the 

 stitches apart, until much fodder and dry hay was pulled out, 

 but no flesh could the bird find or smell ; he was intent on 

 discovering some where none existed ; and, after reiterated 

 efforts, all useless, he took flight, coursed about the field, 

 when, suddenly rounding and falling, I saw him kill a small 

 garter snake, and swallow it in an instant. The vulture rose 

 again, sailed about, and passed several times quite low over 

 my stuffed deerskin, as if loth to abandon so good-looking 

 a prey." The author continues : — " Judge of my feelings 

 when I plainly saw that the vulture, which could not discover, 

 through its extraordinary sense of smell, that no flesh, either 

 fresh or putrid, existed about the skin, could, at a glance, see 

 a snake, scarcely as large as a man's finger, alive, and destitute 

 of odour, hundreds of yards distant." 



In this first experiment, we are left in such uncertainty, 

 with regard to the actual distance of the vulture from the 

 author, at the time the vulture killed the snake, that I cannot, 

 for the life of me, come to any satisfactory conclusion. It 

 appears, that there was a tree about forty yards from the 

 stuffed deerskin. Under covert of the tree, the author 

 watched the predatory attack of the vulture on the skin. 

 The disappointed bird took flight, and coursed about the 

 field, which the author tells us is large and open. While 

 coursing round this field, the vulture, suddenly rounding and 

 falling, killed a garter snake, scarcely as large as a man's 

 finger. The author tells us, he plainly saw that the vulture 

 could see this snake hundreds of yards distant. I am not 



