n8 The Wilson Bulletin. 



a museum in Anatolia College at Marsovan. In order to 

 make the most of the affair I had begun on a previous trial 

 with an experiment in imitation of the one used by Audu- 

 bon long ago, to shed light on the question of how vultures 

 find the carcass of an animal, whether by sight or by scent. 

 Using the stuffed skin of a deer Audubon succeeded in com- 

 pletely deceiving one American Turkey Vulture so that it 

 had to try at the dry hide repeatedly before becoming con- 

 vinced that the deer was a hoax. The test was completed 

 by concealing the body of a hog in the field, and finding it 

 undiscovered by the birds after days of putrefaction, the 

 covering of dry grasses having been no hindrance to the 

 spread of the odor. Using the skin of a small roe deer, I 

 waited in vain in ambush for the approach of any carrion 

 bird; but when the same skin was left out a day with the 

 intestines of a sheep used to fill the abdomen, there were 

 evidences of an experimental visit of some large bird. But 

 when in place of the deerskin was put an equivalent amount 

 of fresh meat, there was a hungry vulture on hand before 

 long to make a meal of it. This being a full sized Tawny 

 Vulture was secured without ceremony. The experiment so 

 far indicated that the great Asiatic vultures depend on sight 

 for finding their food, and, as is perfectly natural, can more 

 quickly distinguish the red signal of flesh without its cover- 

 ing of skin and hair. 



It was after this first acquisition of a big bird had been 

 laboriously sponged over, skinned and treated, that the more 

 interesting ambush followed that I am to describe. 



It was not to be supposed that the vulture is an early 

 bird; so it was not till nine o'clock that I reached the spot 

 chosen for the morning's work: a small cave in a ledge of 

 rocks, the entrance having been screened the day before with 

 fresh oak branches corresponding with the stunted scrub oak 

 that springs from the clefts of rock. There came to this 

 spot two men and a donkey, there departed one man and a 

 donkey minus its load of buffalo meat; but birds cannot 

 count, and none noticed the discrepancy. Soon the sham 



