SMELL. ?! 



vious to putrescence so subtile as to call these sca- 

 vengers of nature from the extremity of one county to 

 that of another : for it is manifest from the height 

 which they preserve in their flight, and the haste they 

 are making, that their departure has been from some 

 far distant station, having a remote and urgent object 

 in contemplation*." 



The following anecdote told by M. Antoine, if it 

 may be credited, illustrates this view of the case in a 

 striking manner. A gentleman who had been rob- 

 bed by his servant, forgave him on condition that he 

 would promise to abandon his bad habits : this 

 promise he so far kept, and conducted himself so 

 steadily, as to accumulate enough of money to 

 enable him to marry and to keep an inn on a much 

 frequented road. About twenty years after, the 

 gentleman travelling that way came to lodge with his 

 old servant, whom he did not recollect till the man 

 came forward, made himself known, and expressed 

 how gratified and happy he was in again waiting 

 upon him. He gave him the handsomest room, and 

 the best fare ; but the night had no sooner set in, 

 than this perfidious wretch, after so much show of 

 attachment, stabbed his old master with a dagger, 

 threw his body into a cart, and carried it to a river at 

 the back of his house. In order to avoid discovery, 

 and to prevent the corpse from rising to the surface of 

 the water, he pierced the body through with a long 

 stake sharpened at the end, which he pushed so far 

 into the mud, that only a very small portion of the 

 end of the stake was visible. A few days afterwards 

 some ravens arrived from all directions, and crowded 

 to the spot. Their increasing croaking, altogether 

 unusual at the place, led the inhabitants to fancy a 

 thousand foolish stories. The pertinacity of the birds 

 was such, also, that it was useless to attempt driving 

 * Journ. of a Naturalist, p. 172, 3d edit. 



