THE VULTURE. 
45 
by a current of wind. Either of these suggestions 
may be adopted in the present instance, because 
the dogs, which had no tainted footsteps to guide 
them, still found that which insured their discovery 
of the carrion. 
The sad experiment of putting out the poor vul- 
ture's eyes fills me with distressing emotions. The 
supposed fact of the tortured captive not smelling 
his favourite food, when placed within an inch of his 
nostrils, forces us to conclude, either that nature 
had not intended that his beautifully developed 
organs of scent should be of the least service to him, 
or that the intensity of pain totally incapacitated 
the lone prisoner from touching food. I am of the 
latter opinion. Unquestionably the pain caused by 
the dreadful operation rendered the miserable suf- 
ferer indifferent to all kind of sustenance. I myself 
have been unable to eat when in the gripes ; and 
I once knew an old owl which died of sheer want, 
rather than swallow any thing in captivity. What 
would the American philosophers think of me, had 
I got this owls demise well authenticated by the 
signatures of divers scientific men, and then de- 
spatched it across the Atlantic, in order to prove 
that owls do not secure their prey by means of their 
feet, because, forsooth, the incarcerated owl in 
question never once struck her talons into the food 
which had been placed within an inch of them. 
Nothing can show more forcibly the utter fallacy 
of the American experiments, than the attack of the 
vultures on the coarse painting which represented 
a " sheep skinned and cut up." Till I had read the 
