CAMELS AND HORSES. 123 



their catching the wind of the Persian camels. * So 

 again the smell of a newly taken sealskin has been 

 known to throw horses into an agony of fear indeed 

 this once happened to ourselves with the skin of a seal 

 we had recently shot. Horses however soon become 

 accustomed to camels and other strange scents when 

 taught that they are harmless. Thus in Egypt, horses 

 and camels are often seen standing or travelling together 

 on quite friendly terms; and in the streets of Cairo, 

 bands of camels pass close to carriages, without being 

 noticed by the horses. So deer, antelopes, and other 

 game animals will often feed near loose horses and 

 cattle, without seeming to object to their company: on 

 the other hand they generally avoid sheep, whose scent 

 is very repulsive to almost all game animals. 



The sense of vision as well as that of scent is how- 

 ever extraordinarily sharp in most kinds of game and 

 in the case of the antelope tribe more especially, they 

 can detect the stealthy approach of an enemy at very 

 great distances; it is however, in the case of birds of 

 prey, such as vultures, that the power of vision seems 

 to be developed almost to a phenomenal degree, ap- 

 proaching to that of the human sight aided by a power- 

 ful telescope. 



We have already described with considerable minute- 

 ness the leading facts connected with the interesting 

 question of the unceasing watch kept up by these birds, 

 over a large portion of the earth's terrestrial surface, 

 as they float with untiring pinions at great altitudes 

 in the heavenly blue ; so that we need not again 

 consider them here. Suffice it to say that this won- 



* See Herodotus Book i, " Clio" Chap. 80. Translated by Henry 

 Cary, M.A., from the text of Baehr, 1891, pp. 35 36. 



