33 



March 14th, 1837. 

 Richard Owen, Esq., in the Chair. 



A paper was read, " On the habits of the Vultur aura," by Mr. W. 

 Sells, with notes of dissections of the heads of two specimens, by 

 Mr. R. Owen. 



ITie writer states that this bird is found in great abundance in the 

 Island of Jamaica, where it is known by the name oiJohn Crow ; and 

 so valuable are its services in the removal of carrion and animal filth, 

 that the legislature have imposed a fine of £5 upon any one destroy- 

 ing it within a stated distance of the principal towns. Its ordi- 

 nary food is carrion, but when hard pressed with hunger it will seize 

 upon young fowls, rats, and snakes. After noticing the highly offen- 

 sive odour emitted from the eggs of this bird when broken, Mr. Sells 

 relates the following instances which have come under his own per- 

 sonal observation, for the purpose of proving, that the Vultur aura 

 possesses the sense of smell in a very acute degree. 



" It has been questioned whether the vulture discovers its food by 

 means of the organ of smell or that of sight. I apprehend that its 

 powers of vision are very considerable, and of most important use to 

 the bird in that point of view ; but that it is principally from highly 

 organized olfactories that it so speedily receives intelligence of where 

 the savory morsel is to be found will plainly appear by the following 

 facts. In hot climates the burial of the dead commonly takes place 

 in about twenty-four hours after death, and that necessarily, so ra- 

 pidly does decomposition take place. On one occasion I had to make 

 a post-mortem examination of a body within twenty hours after 

 death, in a mill-house, completely concealed, and while so engaged 

 the roof of the mill-house was thickly studded with these birds. 

 Another instance was that of an old patient and much-valued friend 

 who died at midnight : the family had to send for necessaries for the 

 funeral to Spanish Town, distant thirty miles, so that the interment 

 could not take place until noon of the second day, or thirty-six hours 

 after his decease, long before which time, and a most painful sight 

 it was, the ridge of the shingled roof of his house, a large mansion 

 of but one floor, had a number of these melancholy-looking heralds 

 of death perched thereon, beside many more which had settled in 

 trees in its immediate vicinity. In these cases the birds must have 

 been directed by smell alone as sight was totally out of the question. 



" In opposition to the above opinion, it has been stated by Mr. Au- 

 dubon that vultures and other birds of prey possess the sense of smell 

 in a very inferior degree to carnivorous quadrupeds, and that so far 

 from guiding them to their prey from a distance, it affords them no 

 indication of its presence, even when close at hand. In confirmation 

 of this opinion he relates that he stufied the skin of a deer full of hay 



No. LI. — Proceedings of the Zoological Society. 



