246 On the Ornithology of Wiits. 
speaks of the black cock as being most acute both in hearing and 
in sight. Such are some of the instances one might collect of 
another sense being possessed by the feathered tribes in extra- 
ordinary perfection: that some birds hear more quickly than others 
is an undisputed fact: but we shall always find, if we examine into 
it, that to those the most subtle sense of hearing is given, whose 
habits cause them to require it most; while from those which would 
not be benefited by it, it is in a measure witheld. 
I have spoken of the powers of sight and hearing so conspicuous 
in birds, I come now to the other sense with which they are pro- 
vided, that of sme//. This too we shall find to be peculiarly delicate 
in some families, though perhaps generally itis but little required, 
and therefore but little developed: and we shall for the most part 
find that those birds whose nostrils are the most conspicuous and 
open, will possess this sense in the highest degree, while those 
whose nostrils are concealed and almost impervious will share in it 
but little. The bird which is certainly most remarkable for this 
faculty, though of late years it has been gainsayed by certain 
American naturalists, is the vulture: blessed as I have already 
remarked, with a keen sense of sight, the vulture soaring through 
the air, and above the dark forests, is also directed to his prey by 
the extraordinary perfection of his organs of smell: his food is 
always putrid, and the effluvium arising therefrom is necessarily most 
rank: but yet when we read in the accounts of ornithologists, who 
have seen them in their own tropical countries, the wonderful 
manner in which these birds will congregate at a putrid carcase, 
hidden though it may be in a pit or a thick forest, and how first 
appearing as a speck in the distant heavens, then gradually 
increasing in size as they come nearer, they arrive singly from all 
quarters, whereas till then not a single individual was to be seen, 
we can form some idea of the great powers of smell which these 
birds must possess. Mr. Waterton who has seen them in Guiana, 
Demerara, and other parts of Southern America; and Mr. Gosse, 
who more recently has seen them in the West Indian islands, have 
published in their respective most interesting little volumes such 
strong and conclusive evidence of the amazing extent of this sense 
