266 THE TURKEY BUZZARD. 



and abdominal regions ? Were his vultures so green in the art of 

 perforation as not to have learned that, as soon as putrefaction takes 

 place, the skin of the tail may be easily perforated at the different 

 joints? If the vultures, only for a minute, had but bethought them- 

 selves of applying their " very powerful bills " to the skin at these 

 joints, it would undoubtedly have yielded to their efforts ; and then 

 they could easily have worked their way forward to the other parts 

 of the alligator. Had but our little carrion crow been there, he 

 could soon have taught them how to carve, and shown the lubberly 

 birds where lay the soft parts. Again, I ask, were the vultures, 

 whose daily occupation ought to give them a pretty correct notion 

 of the general structure of animals, ignorant that there are certain 

 parts in those animals admirably adapted for contraction and expan- 

 sion, and, of course, that those parts are invariably softer than the 

 other parts of the bodies of scaly quadrupeds ? Did his birds not 

 know, or had they forgot on that occasion, that these parts are to be 

 found, on each side of the alligator, betwixt the nearly impenetrable 

 scaly armour on the back ; and the equally impenetrable armour of 

 the under parts ? In a word, I am positive, if his vultures had but 

 been well versed in the nature of the parts without, they would soon 

 have introduced themselves to the delicious banquet within, in lieu 

 of surrounding the carcass from day to day, in hope deferred ; till 

 at last solids were almost turned into fluids, and the disappointed 

 boobies found themselves under the heart-rending necessity of aban- 

 doning the alligator without breaking their fast, and of going in quest 

 of firmer carrion in some other quarter. If our author's statement 

 be correct, viz., that the skin of a large alligator is too tough to be 

 perforated by the bills of vultures, until time shall have rendered the 

 carcass of the dead animal too fluid to be of any use to them in the 

 way of food, then it follows that no large dead alligator can ever 

 become the food of vultures. The birds may certainly see it at a 

 great distance, and wing their way to it, and stop at it ; and other 

 vultures, miles behind them, may even fancy " that they know the 

 meaning of such stoppages : " still, I am prone to opine that their 

 labours would be ill requited. In lieu of dropping down upon a 

 good dinner, disappointment would be their lot ; and they would be 

 regaled with nothing of a more solid nature than transient puffs of 



