AERIAL ENCOUNTER OF THE EAGLE AND VULTURE. 263 



The absurdity of all this must be evident to everybody. 



I, in my turn, hope to prove satisfactorily, by inference, that which 

 the American philosophers have failed to demonstrate by EXPERI- 

 MENTS. I state that effluvium from putrid matter, being lighter than 

 common air, necessarily ascends in the atmosphere, unless artificially 

 impeded (as probably was the case in the first experiment of the 

 American philosophers), or prevented from mounting by superin- 

 cumbent humidity. Now, the organ of scent, which is strongly de- 

 veloped in the vulture, coming in contact with this effluvium, when 

 it is allowed to float in the atmosphere, enables the bird to trace the 

 carrion down to its source. Hence I infer, that vultures can find 

 their food through the medium of their olfactory nerves ; and this 

 being the case, I am of opinion that there ought to be no great 

 mystery attached to the act of the vulture's finding putrid bodies, 

 when those bodies are out of sight, either on account of distance, or 

 of interfering objects. 



When the American philosophers shall have proved to me that 

 effluvium from putrid substances does not ascend in the air, ant/ 

 that the organisation of the vulture's nose is imperfect, then I will 

 consider myself vanquished : " efficaci do manus scientitz" After 

 those gentlemen shall have accomplished this, should their vulturer 

 pine in famine, by continuing to mistake canvas for carcass, why, 

 rot 'em, they may die, for aught I care to the contrary. 



AERIAL ENCOUNTER OF THE EAGLE 

 AND THE VULTURE. 



NEXT to the adventure of the rattlesnake and squirrel, in which 

 Audubon informs us that he saw a rattlesnake swallow a large 

 American squirrel, tail foremost, I am of opinion that this presents 

 the toughest morsel ever offered to the proverbially wide gullet of 

 John Bull. Audubon says, " Many vultures were engaged in devour- 

 ing the body and entrails of a dead horse, when a white-headed 



