116 THE VULTURE. 



ceptible in the neighbourhood, Vulture after Vulture, as they 

 sailed past, was observed always to descend to the cottage of 

 the German, and to sweep round, as if they were aware of 

 some putrid carcase, but could not find out where it was. 

 This at length led the neighbours to suspect that the poor 

 man lay dead in his cottage, as no one had seen him for the 

 last two or three days. His door was therefore broken open, 

 when he was found in a state of extreme feebleness, but the 

 room was most insufferably offensive from something putrefy- 

 ing, which could not for a length of time be found, for the 

 fever having nearly deprived the poor man of his senses, he 

 had no recollection of his uncooked mess of meat and herbs, 

 and as no one thought that the kitchen pot could contain 

 anything likely to produce putrefaction, search was made 

 everywhere but in the right place. At last, however, the 

 pot-lid was lifted, and the cause of the insupportable stench 

 discovered in the corrupted soup-meat. Here we have then 

 clearly proved that the sense of smelling directed the Vultures, 

 without any assistance from the sense of sight, and discover- 

 ing unerringly the locality of the putrid matter, when even 

 the neighbours themselves were unable for some time to 

 detect it. 



A few days succeeding this occurrence, after a night and 

 morning of heavy rain, in which the streets had been inun- 

 dated to the depth of a foot, and flood after flood had been 

 sweeping to the river the drainage of the whole town, a piece 

 of fresh offal had been brought down from some of the yards 

 where an animal had been slaughtered, and lodged in the 

 street. A Vulture, beating about in search of food, dashed 

 down in a slanting direction from a considerable height, and 

 just resting, without closing her wings, snatched up the fresh 

 piece of flesh, and carried it off. Here was the sense of 

 sight clearly unassisted by that of smelling, for the meat was 

 too fresh to communicate any taint to the morning air, and 

 the Vulture stooped to it from a great distance. 



On another occasion, very near to the time when the above 

 two facts occurred, a dead rat had been thrown out early in the 

 morning into the street, having been caught in the night. 



