1T2 Mr Audubon cm the Habits of the Turlaey Biizzard. 



From this examination, it will now be more probable that the 

 luminousness of the eyes of human beings, as well as of beasts, 

 depends on the want of the pigment, and so much the more from 

 being observed only in the albino. With this view of the matter, 

 the two cases already quoted of Sachs and Michaelis are indeed at 

 variance. I must confess that I have read and considered these 

 cases with some degree of interest. Are they really fictions ? 

 When we read of the shape of fiery coruscations, or balls in 

 the eyes, of their rolling round, of their frequently darting 

 forth rays an inch long, our suspicions are surely pardonable. 



As to the different colours of the light in the eyes of dogs, it 

 is owing to the different colouring of the place where the pig- 

 ment is awanting in the choroid, — a fact of which anatomical 

 experiments on the eye of these animals has convinced me ; and 

 hence the varied colour of the light of one and the same eye 

 may be owing more to the motion of that part where the rays 

 of light are reflected upon different coloured portions of the 

 choroid, than to the quantity of the incident rays of light. 



Finally, there is no question but the light observed in the 

 eyes of some beasts of prey, as well as in those of birds, has the 

 origin above ascribed to it ; and its nature is neither phosphoric 

 nor electrical, nor has it any psychological relation. 



Account of the Habits of the TurT^ey Buzzard (Vidtur aura), 

 particularly with the view of exploding the opinion generally 

 entertained of its extraordinary power of Smelling. In a 

 letter to Professor Jameson, by John J. Audubon, a Citizen 

 of the United States *. 



jc\.S soon as, like me, you shall have seen the Turkey Buzzard 

 follow, with arduous closeness of investigation, the skirts of the 

 forests, the meanders of creeks and rivers, sweeping over the 

 whole of extensive plains, glancing his quick eye in all direc- 

 tions, with as much intentness as ever did the noblest of falcons, 

 to discover where below him lies the suitable prey ; — when, like 



• This communication was originally intended to be sent to a fiiend un- 

 acquainted with the habits of birds. — J. J. A. 



