254 THE TURKEY BUZZARD. 



distant, as I am fully aware of the keen sight of all birds ; but what 

 really astonishes me is, that the author could see the snake, and know 

 it to be a garter-snake ; for, upon the face of the statement, I am led 

 to conclude that he himself, as well as the vulture, was hundreds of 

 yards distant from the snake. It were much to be wished that the 

 author had said something positive with regard to the actual distance 

 of the snake from the tree under which he had taken his stand. 

 Again, the author tells us, in the beginning of this experiment, that 

 he retired about a few hundred yards from the spot where he had 

 placed the deerskin in the middle of the large open field, and that a 

 vulture, in the lapse of some minutes, alighted within a few yards of 

 the skin. The author ran immediately, covered by a large tree, till 

 within about forty yards of the skin. Now, quickness of sight in the 

 vulture being the very essence of our author's paper in Jameson's 

 Journal, I am at a loss to conceive how our author contrived to run 

 over the few hundred yards unseen by the vulture. To be sure, a 

 large tree intervened; but then the vulture happened to be about 

 forty yards on the other side of it, and this distance of the vulture 

 from the tree would be all in its favour for descrying a man coming 

 up in an opposite direction, through the open space of a few hun- 

 dred yards, which, to judge by this vague expression, might be a 

 quarter of a mile, more or less. Had the bird seen him, there is no 

 doubt but that it would have flown away ; because the author tells 

 us, in the beginning of his paper, that " when he showed himself to 

 the vultures, they instantly flew away frightened." 



In one part of this experiment, at least, our author proves beyond 

 the shadow of a doubt that his vulture was totally deficient in scent, 

 and he has the very best of all reasons no smell existed in his deer- 

 skin. " No flesh could the bird find, or smell. He was intent on 

 discovering some where none existed." Still, methinks, the vulture 

 was right in ripping up the pretended animal, and there was method 

 in his prosecuting his excavation through the regions of dried hay. 

 No lapse of time could have completely subdued the smell which 

 would arise from the ears, the hoofs, the lips, and the very skin itself 

 of the deer. This smell must have been the thing that instigated the 

 bird to look narrowly into the skin, and detained him so long at the 

 place. I have a better opinion of the vulture's sagacity than to sup- 



