46 THE VULTURE. 
account of it, I had always imagined that the vulture 
had a remarkably keen and penetrating eye. I must 
now alter my opinion. If the American gentlemen 
do not mind what they are about, they will ulti- 
mately prove too much (“ quod nimium probat, nihil 
probat”), and at last compel us Englishmen to con- 
clude that the vultures of the United States can 
neither see nor smell. They assure us that these 
birds are not guided to their food by their scent, but 
by their sight alone; and then, to give us a clear 
idea how defective that sight is, they show us that 
their vultures cannot distinguish the coarsely painted 
carcass of a sheep on canvass from that of a real 
sheep. They. “commenced tugging at the paint- 
ing,” and “seemed much disappointed and sur- 
prised” that they had mistaken canvass for mutton. 
Sad blunder! Pitiable, indeed, is the lot of the 
American vulture! His nose is declared useless in 
procuring food, at the same time that his eyesight 
is proved to be lamentably defective. Unless some- 
thing be done for him, ‘t is ten to one but that he'll 
come to the parish at last, pellis et ossa, a bag of 
bones. ’ 
The American philosophers having fully esta- 
blished the fact, that their vultures are prone to 
mistake a piece of coarsely painted canvass for the 
carcass of a real sheep “skinned and cut up,” I am 
now quite prepared to receive accounts from 
Charleston of vultures attacking every shoulder-of- 
mutton sign in the streets, or attempting to gobble 
down the painted sausages over the shop doors, or 
