34- THE TURKEY BUZZARD. 



ing a man coming up, in an opposite direction, 

 through the open space of 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 

 absolute cheat. 



