264 AERIAL ENCOUNTER OF THE EAGLE AND VULTURE. 



eagle accidentally passing by, the vultures all took to wing, one, 

 amongst the rest with a portion of the entrails, partly swallowed, 

 and the remaining part, about a yard in length, dangling in the air. 

 The eagle instantly marked him and gave chase. The poor vulture 

 tried in vain to disgorge, when the eagle, coming up, seized the loose 

 end of the gut, and dragged the bird along for twenty or thirty yards, 

 much against its will, till both fell to the ground when the eagle 

 struck the vulture, and in a few moments killed it, after which he 

 swallowed the delicious morsel." In his strange paper on the habits 

 of the turkey buzzard, Mr Audubon tells us " that if the object dis- 

 covered is large, lately dead, and covered with a skin too tough to 

 be ate and torn asunder (cart before the horse), and afford free 

 scope to their appetites, they remain about it and in the neighbour- 

 hood." Now, reader, observe that the dead horse being a large 

 animal, its skin, according to this quotation, must have been too 

 tough to be torn asunder by the vultures, until putrefaction took 

 place. If, then, these vultures really commenced devouring the 

 dead animal while it was yet fresh, Mr Audubon's theory, just 

 quoted, is worth nothing. If, on the contrary, the horse in question 

 had become sufficiently putrid to allow the vultures to commence 

 operations, then I will show that the aerial account of the eagle and 

 the vulture is either a mere imaginary effusion of the author's fancy, 

 or a hoax played off upon his ignorance by some designing wag. 

 The entrails of a dead animal are invariably the first part to be 

 affected by putrefaction. Now, we are told that a piece of gut had 

 been torn from the rest, and swallowed by the vulture, a portion of 

 the said gut, about a yard in length, hanging out of his mouth. The 

 vulture, pressed hard by the eagle, tried in vain to disgorge the gut. 

 This is at variance with a former statement, in which Mr Audubon 

 assures us that an eagle will force a vulture to disgorge its food in a 

 moment : so that the validity of this former statement must be thrown 

 overboard, in order to insure the safety of the present adventure ; or 

 vice versa, the present adventure must inevitably sink, if the former 

 statement is to be preserved. Be this as it may, the eagle, out of all 

 manner of patience at the clumsiness of the vulture, in his attempt 

 to restore to daylight that part of the gut which was lying at the 

 bottom of his stomach, laid hold of the end which was still hanging 



