Retrospective Criticism, 165 



surprised that the vulture saw the snake hundreds of yards 

 distant, as I am fully aware of the keen sight of all birds; but 

 what really astonishes me is, that the author could see the 

 snake, and know it to be a garter snake ; for, upon the face 

 of the statement, I am led to conclude, that he himself, as 

 well as the vulture, was hundreds of yards distant from the 

 snake. It were much to be wished that the author had said 

 something positive with regard to the actual distance of the 

 snake from the tree under which he had taken his stand. 

 Again, the author tells us, in the beginning of this experi- 

 ment, that he retired about a few hundred yards from the 

 spot where he had placed the deerskin, in the middle of the 

 large open field ; and that a vulture, in the lapse of some 

 minutes, alighted within a few yards of the skin. The author 

 ran immediately, covered by a large tree, till within about 

 forty yards of the skin. Now, quickness of sight in the 

 vulture being the very essence of our author's paper in 

 Jameson's Journal, I am at a loss to conceive how our author 

 contrived to run over the few hundred yards unseen by the 

 vulture. To be sure, a large tree intervened ; but then the 

 vulture happened to be about forty yards on the other side of 

 it ; and this distance of the vulture from the tree would be 

 all in its favour for descrying a man coming up, in an opposite 

 direction, through the open space of a few hundred yards, 

 which, to judge by this vague expression, might be a quarter 

 of a mile, more or less. Had the bird seen him, there is no 

 doubt but that it would have flown away ; because the author 

 tells us, in the beginning of his paper, that " when he showed 

 himself to the vultures, they instantly flew away frightened." 



" In one part of this experiment, at least, our author 

 proves, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that his vulture was 

 totally deficient in scent ; and he has the very best of all 

 reasons, — no smell existed in his deerskin. " No flesh 

 could the bird find, or smell. He was intent on discovering 

 some, where none existed." Still, methinks, the vulture was 

 right in ripping up the pretended animal; and there was 

 method in his prosecuting his excavation through the regions 

 of dried hay. No lapse of time could have completely sub- 

 dued the smell which would arise from the ears, the hoofs, 

 the lips, and the very skin itself of the deer. This smell 

 must have been the thing that instigated the bird to look 

 narrowly into the skin, and detained him so long at the place. 

 I have a better opinion of the vulture's sagacity, than to 

 suppose that he would have spent so much of his precious 

 time upon the rudely stuffed mockery of an animal, unless 

 his nose had given him information that some nutriment 



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