32 



THE TURKEY BUZZARD. 



and painted clay, attacked first one and then the 

 other, with, however, no further advantage than 

 that of disarranging them. This part was aban- 

 doned ; the bird walked to the other extremity of 

 the pretended animal, and there, with much exer- 

 tion, tore the stitches apart, until much fodder and 

 dry hay was pulled out, but no flesh could the bird 

 find or smell; he was intent on discovering - some 

 where none existed ; and after reiterated efforts, 

 all useless, he took flight, coursed about the field, 

 when, suddenly rounding 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 my stuffed deerskin, 

 as if loth to abandon so good-looking a prey." The 

 author continues : — " Judge of my feelings when I 

 plainly saw that the vulture, which could not dis- 

 cover, through its extraordinary sense of smell, that 

 no flesh, either fresh or putrid, existed about the 

 skin, could, at a glance, see a snake, scarcely as 

 large as a man's finger, alive, and destitute of odour, 

 hundreds of yards distant." 



In this first experiment, we are left in such 

 uncertainty, with regard to the actual distance of 

 the vulture from the author, at the time the vulture 

 killed the snake, that I cannot, for the life of me, 

 come to any satisfactory conclusion. It appears, 

 that there was a tree about forty yards from the 

 stuffed deerskin. Under covert of the tree, the 

 author watched the predatory attack of the vulture 

 on the skin. The disappointed bird took flighty 

 and coursed about the field, which the author tells 



