28 
THE VULTURE. 
river to the place where we were, in a direction quite 
opposite to the trade-wind. My Indians knew by 
this that other Indians were encamped for the night 
on the river-side above us. 
When the eruption took place in the Island of St. 
Vincent, in the Caribbean Sea, in 1812, cinders and 
other minor particles of matter were carried nearly, 
if not fully, 200 miles to windward, and were said to 
have fallen at or near Barbadoes. Had there been 
a carcass, in a state of decomposition, at the place 
during the time of the eruption, no doubt the efflu- 
vium arising from it would have been taken to wind- 
ward by a temporary counter-aerial current ; and a 
vulture in Barbadoes might probably have had pretty 
certain information, through his olfactory nerves, 
that there was something good for him in the Island 
of St. Vincent. 
Vultures, as far as I have been able to observe, 
do not keep together in a large flock, when they are 
soaring up and down apparently in quest of a tainted 
current. Now, suppose a mule has just expired 
behind a high wall, under the dense foliage of ever- 
green tropical trees ; fifty vultures, we will say, roost 
on a tree a mile from this dead mule : when morn- 
ing comes, off they go in quest of food. Ten fly by 
mere chance to the wood where the mule lies, and 
manage to spy it out through the trees ; the rest go 
quite in a different direction. How are the last- 
mentioned birds to find the mule ? Every minute 
carries them farther from it. Now reverse the state- 
ment; and, instead of a mule newly dead, let us 
suppose a mule in an offensive state of decompos- 
