58 Beck, The Occult Senses in Birds. [j a u ^ 



projecting rocks and soil that the carcass at the bottom was com- 

 pletely hidden from view. 



Under the existing conditions it is difficult to account for the 

 rinding of the carrion by either eye or nose sense in the vultures. 

 The dog being invisible and there being no vultures in the neighbor- 

 hood when it was thrown into the hole, sight could scarcely have 

 been involved; and the possibility of a freshly killed dog at the 

 bottom of a six foot hole giving off enough scent in midwinter to 

 attract birds miles away is out of the question, even after eliminat- 

 ing the fact that the sense of smell is but poorly developed generally 

 among birds. 



Assuming the correctness of the theory of a food finding sense as it 

 exists to-day in certain species, the imagination naturally runs back 

 to the earlier stages in the evolution of these species. Given by 

 Nature the right to life — if life can be maintained, and the first 

 essential of continued existence — food, it is perhaps logical and it 

 is certainly well supported by analogies, that chance superiority in 

 food finding would develop into something of permanent value in 

 the species, and that the sense thus evolved would be the determin- 

 ing factor of survival among a host of related forms many of which 

 succumbed in the struggle for existence. And it is reasonable too 

 that this food finding sense should have been most highly evolved, 

 during centuries of wide spread forest areas, and that it should have 

 persisted up to the present times, in those species which were high 

 soaring and carrion feeding; for logically, among the raptores where 

 hunting and killing powers were lacking, subsistence depended upon 

 food that must have been, almost invariably, concealed as well as 

 fortuitous. 



Again assuming that two leading essentials for the maintenance 

 of the species — finding food and finding the home — had been 

 assisted by specialized senses, it should follow that the third promi- 

 nent factor — mating - — had been similarly safeguarded. 



While there is no convincing evidence at hand in support of a 

 definite mate finding sense among vertebrates, there are many 

 baffling incidents of field observations which would find explana- 

 tion in such a theory. 



In insect life however there is evidence which if not conclusive 

 is strongly contributive. Thus a common wasp — Pelccinus — ■ 



