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 I 
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 thne the vulture I 
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 I 
on the skin. The disappointed bird took flighty i 
and coursed about the field, which the author tells 
