THE TURKEY BUZZARD. 31 
person, at the actual time he approached the vul- 
tures; and, secondly, he is silent as to the precise 
position of his own person, with regard to the wind. 
This neglect renders his experiment unsatisfactory. 
If, on his drawing near to the birds, no particular 
effluvium or strong smell proceeded from his person, 
it is not to be expected that they could smell him. 
De nihilo nihilum, in nihilum nil posse reverti, as the 
old saying is. If, again, he had a smell about him, 
and he happened to be to /eeward as he approached 
the vultures, their. olfactory nerves could not pos- 
sibly have been roused to action by it, although he 
had been Gorgonius himself (Gorgonius hireum), 
for every particle of smell from his person would 
have been carried down the gale, in a contrary di- 
rection to the birds. 
I will now proceed to examine the author’s first 
experiment. “ I procured,” says he, “a skin of our 
common deer, entire to the hoofs, and stuffed it 
carefully with dried grass until filled, rather above 
the natural size, — suffered the whole to become 
perfectly dry, and hard as leather, — took it to the 
middle of a large open field, laid it down on its back, 
with its legs up and apart, as if the animal was dead 
and putrid. I then. retired about a few hundred 
yards ; and in the lapse of some minutes a vulture, 
coursing round the field, tolerably high, espied. the 
skin, sailed directly towards it, and alighted within 
a few yards of it. I ran immediately, covered by a 
large tree, until within about forty yards; and from 
that place could spy the bird with ease. He ap- 
proached the skin, looked at it without apparent 
suspicion, jumped on it, &c.— then, approaching 
