36 THE TURKEY BUZZARD. 



devour the hams of swine, and riot on pig's liver, 

 in such amazing secrecy and silence as not to be 

 observed in the act by the lynx-eyed vultures 

 above ? Were there no squabbles amongst the dogs 

 for possession of the pig's cheeks ? no snarling for 

 the flitch ? no pulling the body this way, or that 

 way ? no displacing the materials with which the 

 negroes had covered the hog ? In a word, was 

 there no movement on the part of the dogs, by 

 which the passing vultures might receive a hint 

 that there was something in the ravine below " cal- 

 culated to glut their voracious appetite?" Fear, 

 certainly, could not have kept them away ; because 

 the author tells us, in another part of his account, 

 that he has seen vultures feeding at one extremity 

 of a carcass, and dogs at another. 



This second experiment, like the story of the 

 " bear and fiddle," was broken off in the middle. 

 The author tried to go near the carcass, but the 

 smell was so insufferable that he abandoned it 

 when he had got within thirty yards of it. He 

 tells us, the remains were entirely destroyed, at 

 last, through natural decay. How did he learn 

 this ? At the time that he abandoned the carcass 

 to its fate, the insufferable smell clearly proved that 

 there was plenty of carrion still on the bones ; but, 

 as the author's own olfactory nerves prevented him 

 from watching it any longer, I will take upon myself 

 to make up the hiatus valde deflendus, which his sud- 

 den retreat occasioned, by a conjecture of my own ; 

 namely, that the dogs and vultures, like the devil 

 and the king, in " Sir Balaam," divided the prize. It 



