CH. XXXI. CARRION-FEEDING BIRDS. 171 



trout ; excepting that the tern uses its sharp-pointed 

 bill instead of its feet. I have often taken up the 

 sand-eels which the terns have dropped on being 

 alarmed, and have invariably found that the little 

 fish had but one small wound, immediately behind 

 the head. That a bird should catch such a little 

 slippery, active fish as a sand-eel, in the manner in 

 which a tern catches it, seems almost inconceivable ; 

 and yet every dweller on the sea-coast sees it done 

 every hour during the period that these birds fre- 

 quent our shores. In nature nothing is impossible ; 

 and when we are talking of habits and instincts, no 

 such word as impossibility should be used. 



I never could quite understand the instinct which 

 leads carrion-feeding birds to their food. We fre- 

 quently see ravens, buzzards, and other birds of simi- 

 lar habits congregating round the dead body of an 

 animal almost immediately after it has ceased to live ; 

 and therefore I cannot agree with those naturalists 

 who assert that it is the sense of smelling which 

 leads these birds to their feast. From my own ob- 

 servation I am convinced that this is not the case, 

 as I have known half a dozen buzzards collect round 

 a dead cat, on the afternoon of the same day on 

 which it had been killed, and this, too, during the 

 winter season, when the dead animal could have 

 emitted no odour strong enough to attract its de- 



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