The Sense of Smell in Birds 



fossicked in the earth and found the rotten 

 potatoes by accidental contact, this certainly 

 argues a real scenting power, and at any rate, 

 the experiment would be easy to repeat with any 

 food to which ducks are partial. It may be men- 

 tioned that this observation led him to notice 

 that the truly wild ducks were so attracted by 

 the rotten potatoes in the fields that they could be 

 found there even in the middle of the day ; this 

 certainly indicates a cheap food for stock ducks, 

 although not at all a desirable one for birds which 

 are destined to an early appearance at table. 



St. John, like field observers in general, did 

 not believe that carrion feeders were guided 

 to their food by scent, and in connection with 

 this, Darwin's experiment with condors is worthy 

 of notice. When at Valparaiso, he found a 

 number of these birds kept tethered in a garden, 

 and only fed once a week by their unfeeling 

 owners, so that they must have been in a chroni- 

 cally famished state. Wrapping a piece of meat 

 up in paper, he walked to and fro with it within 

 three yards of them, but they took no notice, and 

 when he threw it down within a yard of one old 

 male, the bird only paid it momentary attention, 

 till it was pushed so near him with a stick that 

 he touched it with his beak, when he furiously 

 tore off the paper, to the great excitement of the 

 other birds. 



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