24 
THE VULTURE. 
might have said of these unfortunate victims of the 
pestilence, — 
« Their limbs unburied on the naked shore, 
Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore." 
In Andalusia, one day in particular, I stood to watch 
the vultures feeding on the putrid remains of a 
mule, some ten miles from the pleasant village of 
Alhaurin. Both kids and lambs were reposing and 
browsing up and down in the neighbourhood, still 
the vultures touched them not ; neither did the 
goatherds seem to consider their flocks as being in 
bad or dangerous company, otherwise they might 
have despatched the vultures with very little trouble, 
for they were so gorged with carrion that they ap- 
peared unwilling to move from the place. Now, 
seeing some of the kids and lambs lying on the 
ground quite motionless, and observing that the 
vultures paid no attention to them, I came to the 
following conclusion, viz. that the vulture is directed 
to its food by means of its olfactory nerves coming 
in contact with tainted effluvium floating in the 
atmosphere ; and this being the case, we may safely 
infer that the vulture cannot possibly mistake a 
sleeping animal for one in which life is extinct, and 
which has begun to putrefy. 
If the vulture were directed to its food solely by 
its eye, there would be a necessity for it to soar to 
an immense height in the sky; and even then it 
would be often at a loss to perceive its food on ac- 
count of intervening objects. But I could never see 
