THE TURKEY BUZZARD. 



pose that he would have spent so much of his precious time upon 

 the rudely-stuffed mockery of an animal, unless his nose had given 

 him information that some nutriment existed in that which his 

 keen and piercing eye would soon have told him was an absolute 

 cheat. 



Second Experiment. The author says, " I had a large dead hog 

 hauled some distance from the house, and put into a ravine, about 

 twenty feet deeper than the surface of the earth around it, narrow 

 and winding, much filled with briars and high cane. In this I made 

 the negroes conceal the hog, by binding cane over it, until I thought 

 it would puzzle either the buzzards, carrion crows, or any other birds 

 to see it, and left it for two days. This was early in the month of 

 July, when in this latitude it becomes putrid and extremely fetid in a 

 short time. I saw, from time to time, many vultures in search of food 

 sail over the field and ravine in all directions, but none discovered 

 the carcass, although during this time several dogs had visited it and 

 fed plentifully on it. I tried to go near it, but the smell was so in^ 

 sufferable, when within thirty yards, that I abandoned it ; and the re^ 

 mains were entirely destroyed at last through natural decay." 



Here the author positively and distinctly tells us, that he saw many 

 vultures, in search of food, sail over the field and ravine in all direc- 

 tions, but none discovered the carcass, although during this time 

 several dogs had visited it, and fed plentifully on it. Pray, when the 

 dogs were at dinner on the carcass, and the vultures at the same time 

 were flying over the ravine where the hog lay, what prevented these 

 keen-eyed birds from seeing the hog ? The author positively says, 

 that none discovered the carcass. Could, then, several dogs devour 

 the hams of swine, and riot on pig's liver, in such amazing secrecy 

 and silence as not to be observed in the act by the lynx-eyed vultures 

 above ? Were there no squabbles amongst the dogs for possession 

 of the pig's cheeks ? no snarling for the flitch ? no pulling the body 

 this way or that way ? no displacing the materials with which the 

 negroes had covered the hog ? In a word, was there no movement 

 on the part of the dogs by which the passing vultures might receive a 

 nint that there was something in the ravine below " calculated to glut 

 their voracious appetite ? " Fear, certainly, could not have kept them 

 away; because the author tells us, in another part of his account, 



