34 THE TURKEY BUZZARD. 
ing a man coming up, in an opposite direction, 
through the open space ef a few hundred yards, 
which, to judge by this vague expression, might 
be a quarter of a mile, more or less. Had the bird 
seen him, there is no doubt but that it would have 
flown away; because the author tells us, in the 
beginning of his paper, that “when he showed 
himself to the vultures, they instantly flew away 
frightened.” 
“In one part of this experiment, at least, our 
author proves, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that 
his vulture was totally deficient in scent; and he 
has the very best of all reasons, — no smell existed 
in his deerskin. ‘“ No flesh could the bird find, or 
smell. He was intent on discovering some, where 
none existed.” Still, methinks, the vulture was 
right in ripping up the pretended animal ; and there 
was method in his prosecuting his excavation 
through the regions of dried hay. No lapse of 
time could have completely subdued the smell 
which would arise from the ears, the hoofs, the 
lips, and the very skin itself of the deer. This 
smell must have been the thing that instigated the 
bird to look narrowly into the skin, and detained 
him so long at the place. I have a better opinion 
of the vulture’s sagacity, than to suppose that he 
would have spent so much of his precious time 
upon the rudely stuffed mockery of an animal, 
unless his nose had given him information that 
some nutriment existed in that which his keen and 
piercing eye would soon have told him was an ab- 
solute cheat. 
