and affect the olfactory nerves of birds 

 at so many miles distant. We were 

 disposed to believe that these birds 

 were directed towards the carrion 

 rather by the sense of seeing than by 

 that of smelling. This opinion is con- 

 firmed by the following observations 

 of our friend Audubon, communicated 

 to us by him some time ago for our 

 Philosophical Journal. ' ' 



Here follows at length Audubon's 

 communication, from which I extract 

 the following passages: 



"My First Experiment was as follows: 

 I procured a skin of our common deer, 

 entire to the hoofs, and stuffed it care- 

 fully with dried grass until filled rather 

 above the natural size, — suffered the 

 whole to become perfectly dry and as 

 hard as leather — took it to the middle 

 of a large open field, and laid it down 

 upon its back with the legs up and apart, 

 as if the animal were dead and putrid. 

 I then retired about a few hundred 

 yards, and in the lapse of some minutes 

 a vulture coursing around the field, 

 tolerably high, espied the skin, sailed 

 directly towards it, and alighted within 

 a few yards of it. I ran immediately, 

 covered by a large tree, until within 

 about forty yards, and from that place 

 could spy the bird with ease. He ap- 

 proached the skin, looked at it with- 

 out apparent suspicion, raised his tail 

 and voided itself freely (as you well 

 know all birds of prey in a wild state 

 generally do before feeding), then ap- 

 proaching the eyes, that were here 

 solid globes of hard, dried, and painted 

 clay, attacked first one and then the 

 other, with, however, no farther advan- 

 tage than that of disarranging them. 

 This part was abandoned; the bird 

 walked to the other extremity of the 

 pretended animal, and there, with 

 much exertion, tore the stitches apart, 

 until much fodder and hay were pulled 

 out; but no flesh could the bird find or 

 smell; he was intent on finding some 

 where none existed, and, after reiter- 

 ated efforts, all useless, he took flight, 

 coursed round the field, when, sud- 

 denly turning and falling, I saw him 

 kill a small garter snake and swallow 

 it in an instant. The vulture rose 

 again, sailed about, and passed several 



times quite low over the stuffed deer- 

 skin, as if loth to abandon so good- 

 looking a prey. 



"Judge of my feelings when I plainly 

 saw that the vulture, which could not 

 discover through its extraordinary 

 sense of smell that no flesh, either 

 fresh or putrid, existed about that skin, 

 could at a glance see a snake scarcely 

 as large as a man's finger, alive, and 

 destitute of odor, hundreds of yards 

 distant. I concluded that, at all events, 

 his ocular powers were much better 

 than his sense of smell. 



"Second Experiment. — I had a large 

 dead hog hauled some distance from 

 the house and put into a ravine, about 

 twenty feet deeper than the surface of 

 the earth around it, narrow and wind- 

 ing much, filled with briars and high 

 cane. In this I made the negroes con- 

 ceal the hog, by binding cane over it, 

 until I thought it would puzzle either 

 buzzards, carrion-crows, or any other 

 birds to see it, and left it for two days. 

 This was early in the month of July, 

 when, in this latitude, a body becomes 

 putrid and extremely fetid in a short 

 time. I saw from time to time many 

 vultures, in search of food, sail over 

 the field and ravine in all directions, 

 but none discovered the carcass, al- 

 though during this time several dogs 

 had visited it and fed plentifully on it. 

 I tried to go near it, but the smell was 

 so insufferable when within thirty 

 yards of it that I abandoned it, and the 

 remnants were entirely destroyed at 

 last through natural decay. 



"I then took a young pig, put a knife 

 through its neck, and made it bleed on 

 the earth and grass about the same, 

 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 of the 

 pig, and devoured it, when yet quite 

 fresh, within my sight." 



He pursues the subject at some 

 length, recounting other experiments; 

 but these, were they not even given 

 on the authority of Audubon — 

 clarum et ve?ierabiie nomen — seem to me 

 to be conclusive. 



22 Irving place, New York 



104 



