256 THE TURKEY BUZZARD. 



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 car- 

 cass, 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 watch- 

 ing it any longer, I will take upon myself to make up the hiatus valde 

 deflendus, which his sudden 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 would have taken a lapse of 

 weeks to have destroyed the smell putrescent which came from the 

 remains of so large an animal ; and even granted that the vultures 

 had been too dull of nose to have smelled it, still it could not have 

 failed to have attracted other dogs, or the same dogs when their 

 stomachs had become empty ; and they themselves would have gnawed 

 off all the flesh, and squandered the bones, without allowing " natural 

 decay " to consume that which was so palatable to them. Be this as 

 it may, the author immediately returned, and commenced a new 

 operation about the same place. This fortifies me in my conjecture, 

 that the carcass must have had some greedy customers after the 

 author's departure, otherwise the insufferable smell must have been 

 still there ; and then the author, by his own account, would have been 

 ill able to stand the attacks on his nasal feelings during the new ope- 

 ration. 



He says, " I then took a young pig, put a knife through its neck, 

 and made it bleed on the earth and grass about the same place, and, 

 having covered it closely with leaves, also watched the result. The 

 vultures saw the fresh blood, alighted about it, followed it down 

 into the ravine, discovered by the blood the pig, and devoured 

 it, when yet quite fresh, within my sight" I must here own I am 

 astonished that the vultures could see this, and still have seen nothing 

 of the large hog whilst several dogs were feeding on it. However, I 

 request the reader to ruminate for a while on these two experiments 



