THE VUL TURE 'S NOSE. 2 6 r 



highly tainted vapour. But here I will stop : I have been too long 



on carrion, 



"Neque enim tolerare vaporem 



Ulterius potui." Ovid. Met., ii. 301. 



THE VULTURE'S NOSE. 



THE American philosophers have signed a solemn certificate that- 

 they feel assured that the two species of vultures which inhabit the 

 United States "are guided to their food altogether through their 

 sense of sight, and not that of smell." I, on the contrary, assert that 

 all vultures can find their food through the medium of their olfactory 

 nerves, though it be imperceptible to their eye. I cannot consent to 

 deprive the vultures of their noses merely on the strength of experi- 

 ments, which, from circumstances, may prove fallacious, notwith- 

 standing every possible precaution ; and, in the cases before us, I 

 find myself constrained to dispute the legitimacy of the deductions 

 at which these gentlemen calculate they have arrived. The effluvium 

 from the dead hare and the offal which they had procured might 

 have been prevented from ascending by the covering of brushwood ; 

 or it might have been depressed to the earth by humidity, or by a 

 current of wind. Either of these suggestions may be adopted in the 

 present instance, because the dogs, which had no tainted footsteps 

 to guide them, still found that which insured their discovery of the 

 carrion. 



The sad experiment of putting out the poor vulture's eyes fills me 

 with distressing emotions. The supposed fact of the tortured cap- 

 tive not smelling his favourite food, when placed within an inch of 

 his nostrils, forces us to conclude, either that nature had not in- 

 tended that his beautifully-developed organs of scent should be of 

 the least service to him, or that the intensity of pain totally incapa- 

 citated the lone prisoner from touching food. I am of the latter 

 opinion. Unquestionably the pain caused by the dreadful operation 

 rendered the miserable sufferer indifferent to all kind of sustenance. 



