THE TURKEY BUZZARD. 
37 
prize. It would have taken a lapse of weeks to 
have destroyed the smell putrescent which came 
from the remains of so large an animal ; and even 
granted that the vultures had been too dull of nose 
to have smelled it, still it could not have failed to 
have attracted other dogs, or the same dogs when 
their stomachs had become empty ; and they them- 
selves would have gnawed off all the flesh, and 
squandered the bones, without allowing " natural 
decay " to consume that which was so palatable to 
them. Be this as it may, the author immediately 
returned, and commenced a new operation about 
the same place. This fortifies me in my conjecture, 
that the carcass must have had some greedy cus- 
tomers after the author's departure, otherwise the 
insufferable smell must have been still there; and 
then the author, by his own account, would have 
been ill able to stand the attacks on his nasal feel- 
ings during the new operation. 
He says, " I then took a young pig, put a knife 
through its neck, and made it bleed on the earth and 
grass about the same place, and, having covered it 
closely with leaves, also watched the result. The vul- 
tures saw the fresh blood, alighted about it, followed 
it down into the ravine, discovered by the blood the 
pig, and devoured it, when yet quite fresh, within my 
sight." I must here own I am astonished that the 
vultures could see this, and still have seen nothing 
of the large hog while several dogs were feeding 
on it. However, I request the reader to ruminate 
for a while on these two experiments with the large 
D 3 
