THE VULTURE. 12? 



length led the neighbours to suspect that the poor man 

 lay dead in his cottage, as no one had seen him for the 

 last two or three days. His door was therefore broken 

 open, when he was found in a state of extreme feeble- 

 ness, but the room was most insufferably offensive from 

 something putrefying, which could not for a length of 

 time be found, for the fever having nearly deprived the 

 poor man of his senses, he had no recollection of his 

 uncooked mess of meat and herbs, and as no one 

 thought that the kitchen pot could contain anything 

 likely to produce putrefaction, search was made every- 

 where but in the right place. At last, however, the 

 pot-lid was lifted, and the cause of the insupportable 

 stench discovered in the corrupted soup-meat. Here 

 we have then clearly proved that the sense of smelling 

 directed the Vultures, without any assistance from the 

 sense of sight, and discovering unerringly the locality of 

 the putrid matter, when even the neighbours themselves 

 were unable for some time to detect it. 



A few days succeeding this occurrence, after a night 

 and morning of heavy rain, in which the streets had 

 been inundated to the depth of a foot, and flood after 

 flood had been sweeping to the river the drainage of 

 the whole town, a piece of fresh offal had been brought 

 down from some of the yards where an animal had been 

 slaughtered, and lodged in the street. A Vulture, beat- 

 ing about in search of food, dashed down in a slanting 

 direction from a considerable height, and just resting, 

 without closing her wings, snatched up the fresh piece 

 of flesh, and carried it off. Here was the sense of sight 

 clearly unassisted by that of smelling, for the meat was 

 too fresh to communicate any taint to the morning air, 

 and the Vulture stooped to it from a great distance. 



On another occasion, very near to the time when the 

 above two facts occurred, a dead rat had been thrown 

 out early in the morning into the street, having been 

 caught in the night. Two Vultures sailing over-head 

 in quest of a morning meal, descended at the same time, 



