Mr Audubon on the Habits of the Turkey Buzzard, 173 



me, you have repeatedly seen that bird pass over objects cal- 

 culated to glut his voracious appetite unnoticed, because unseen ; 

 and when you have also observed the greedy vulture propelled 

 by hunger, if not famine, moving like the wind suddenly round 

 his course as the carrion attracts his eye, — then will you abandon 

 the deeply-rooted notion that this bird possesses the faculty of 

 discovering, by his sense of smell, his prey at an immense dis- 

 tance. 



This power of smelling so acutely I adopted as a fact from tny 

 youth. I had read of this when a child ; and many of the theo- 

 rists to whom I subsequently spoke of it, repeated the same with 

 enthusiasm, the more particularly as they considered it an ex- 

 traordinary gift of nature. But I had already observed, that 

 Nature, although wonderfully bountiful, had not granted more 

 to any one individual than was necessary, and that no one was 

 possessed of any two of the senses in a very high state of perfec- 

 tion ; that if it had a good scent, it needed not so much acuteness 

 of sight, and vice versa. When I visited the Southern States, 

 and had lived, as it were, amongst these vultures for several years, 

 and discovered thousands of times that they did not smell me 

 when I approached them covered by a tree, until within a few feet, 

 and that when so near, or at a greater distance, I shewed myself 

 to them, they instantly flew away much frightened, the idea eva- 

 porated, and I assiduously engaged in a series of experiments to 

 prove, to myself at least, how far this acuteness of smell existed, 

 or if it existed at all. 



I sit down to communicate to you the results of those ex- 

 periments, and leave for you to conclude how far, and how 

 long, the world has been imposed on by the mere assertions of 

 men who had never seen more than the skins of our vultures, or 

 heard the accounts from men caring little about observing na- 

 ture closely. 



My first experiment was as follows : 



I procured 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 

 as hard as leather, — took it to the middle of a large open field, — 

 laid it down on its back with the legs up and apart, as if the animal 



