248 
OBSERVATIONS ON VULTURES 
fodder and hay was pulled out ; but no flesh could t' 1 ^ 
bird find or smell ; he was intent on discovering soJ 11 . 
where none existed, and, after reiterated efforts, a ‘ 
useless, he took flight, coursed about the field, wb^j 
suddenly rounding and falling, I saw him kill a ^ n,il 
garter snake, and swallow it in an instant. The vult 11 / 
rose again, sailed about, and passed several times <1® 1 
low over the stuffed deerskin, as if loth to abandon s j 
good looking a prey. 
“ Judge of my feelings when I plainly saw that ^ 
vulture, which could not discover, through its ext 1 * 3 | 
ordinary sense of smell, that no flesh, either fresh 0 
putrid, existed about that skin, could at a glance se£ \ 
snake, scarcely as large as a man’s finger, alive, 
destitute of odour, hundreds of yards distant, 
concluded that at all events his ocular powers 
much better than his sense of smell. < 
“ Second Experiment . — I had a large dead hog hank 
some distance from the house, and put into a ravi fl ? 
about twenty feet deeper than the surface of the ear! 
around it, narrow and winding much, filled with bri^ 
and high cane. In this I made the negroes cofl£ e ., 
the hog, by binding cane over it, until I though*' * 
would puzzle either buzzards, carriou crows, or 
other birds, to see it, and left it for two days. 
was early in the month of July, when, in this latitu** 
a dead body becomes putrid arid extremely fetid i u * 
short time. I saw from time to time many vultures, 1 . 
search of food, sail over the field and ravine i° ‘V 
directions, but none discovered the carcass, altho^r , 
during this time several dogs had visited it and 
plentifully on it. I tried to go near it, hut the sto e . 
was so insufferable when within thirty yards, tha* , 
abandoned it, and the remnants were entirely destroy 1 
at last through natural decay. 
“ I then took a young pig, put a knife through * * 
neck, and made it, bleed on the earth and grass ab° lJ 
the same, and, having covered it closely with lea* c ‘?’ | 
also watched the result. The . vultures saw the fr^ 
blood, alighted about it, followed it down into | 
