1834.} CARRION-VULTURES, 185 
wings. Under the same circumstances, it would have been quite 
impossible to have deceived a dog. The evidence in favour of and 
against the acute smelling powers of carrion-vultures is singu- 
larly balanced. Professor Owen has demonstrated that the olfac- 
tory nerves of the turkey-buzzard (Cathartes aura) are highly 
developed; and on the evening when Mr. Owen’s paper was read 
at the Zoological Society, it was mentioned by a gentleman that 
he had seen the carrion-hawks in the West Indies on two occa- 
sions collect on the roof of a house, when a corpse had become 
offensive from not having been buried: in this case, the intelli- 
gence could hardly have been acquired by sight. On the other 
hand, besides the experiments of Audubon and that one by my- 
self, Mr. Bachman has tried in the United States many varied 
plans, showing that neither the turkey-buzzard (the species dis- 
sected by Professor Owen) nor the gallinazo find their food by 
smell. He covered portions of highly offensive offal with a thin 
canvass cloth, and strewed pieces of meat on it ; these the carrion- 
vultures ate up, and then remained quietly standing, with their 
beaks within the eighth of an inch of the putrid mass, without dis- 
covering it. A small rent was made in the canvass, and the offal 
was immediately discovered ; the canvass was replaced by a fresh 
piece, and meat again put on it, and was again devoured by the 
vultures without their discovering the hidden mass on which they 
were trampling. These facts are attested by the signatures of 
six gentlemen, besides that of Mr. Bachman.* 
Often when lying down to rest on the open plains, on looking 
upwards, I have seen carrion-hawks sailing through the air at a 
great height. Where the country is level I do not believe a 
space of the heavens, of more than fifteen degrees above the ho- 
rizon, is commonly viewed with any attention by a person either 
walking or on horseback. If such be the case, and the vulture 
is on the wing ata height of between three and four thousand 
feet, before it could come within the range of vision, its distance 
in a straight line from the beholder’s eye, would be rather more 
than two British miles. Might it not thus readily be over- 
looked? When an animal is killed by the sportsman in a lonely 
valley, may he not all the while be watched from above by the 
sharp-sighted bird? And will not the manner of its descent 
* Loudon’s Magazine of Nat. Hist., vol. vii. 
