SECRETED GAME. 139 



although, if you gazed steadily in the heavens, 

 numbers of these birds could be seen sailing far 

 aloft. The moment after the game had been 

 paunched, the scavenger-beetle would find it out, 

 however light the wind might be, and if you went 

 down the wind for half a mile, or even more, you 

 could hear these busy insects booming past you, 

 proceeding with unerring precision to where the offal 

 lay. Not so with the vulture ; for I have known 

 them feed on a carcase not more than a few hundred 

 yards from another, and never discover its whereabouts. 

 At the same time, it should be stated that the dead 

 game which they did not find was well covered over 

 with limbs of trees and brushwood ; but this covering 

 would in no way obstruct the smell arising from flesh 

 that had commenced to decompose being disseminated. 

 If a dead beast be secreted under a thick screen of 

 bushes, the first bird to discover its whereabouts 

 I have invariably found to be the corbivan. This 

 possibly arises from the fact that the flight of this 

 bird is generally close to the earth, and that it 

 is of such an inquisitive turn, of mind that it 

 examines carefully anything that strikes it as new, 

 or previously unobserved. Satisfied that the novelty 



