2 ACCIPITRES. VULTURIDjE. 



Trinidad, but is unknown in Hayti, and in all the 

 intermediate islands of the Caribbean chain. We 

 are no doubt indebted for it to an accidental colony 

 blown over to us from Cuba, and Cuba herself 

 owes it to some stray visitants from the neigh- 

 bouring continent of Florida. Some similar for- 

 tuity imparted to us in common with Cuba, from 

 America, its naturalized hive-bee, which is said to 

 have been, at comparatively a late period, an intro- 

 duction into St. Domingo. 



" Those who ascribe the power which the Vul- 

 ture possesses of discerning from a distance its 

 carrion food, to the sense of seeing or to the sense 

 of smelling, exclusively) appear to me to be both 

 in error. It is the two senses, exerted sometimes 

 singly, but generally unitedly, which give the fa- 

 cility which it possesses of tracing its appropriate 

 food from far distances. * * * * I shall relate one 

 or two occurrences, which seem to me to be in- 

 stances in which the sense of seeing and the sense 

 of smelling were sometimes separately and some- 

 times unitedly exerted by the Vulture in its quest 

 for food. 



" A poor German immigrant who lived alone in a 

 detached cottage in this town, rose from his bed 

 after a two days' confinement by fever, to purchase 

 in the market some fresh meat for a little soup. 

 Before he could do more than prepare the several 

 ingredients of herbs and roots, and put his meat 

 in water for the preparation of his pottage, the 

 paroxysm of fever had returned, and he laid him- 

 self on his bed exhausted. Two days elapsed in 



