THE SENSES OF SIGHT AND SMELL. 
ArK.3tUiL.?()(VI\l.,^O.IO. S^-3,1%%’1. p.7-2-3. 
Poet ^oyai^, Tenn. 
Editor American Field When I wrote you recently 
combatting the theory that buzzards find their food by 
sight, not smeli, I determined to experiment and test the 
matter in the most thorough and impartial manner. I 
used the body of a dead dog, which had been shot and 
lying undisturbed for two days; it showed signs of de- 
composition, and maggots were attacking its body where 
the shot holes were. I took it up and concealed it in 
a fence corner, under a dense growth of bushes, the 
leaves covering it compieteiy, and ieft it there. About 
eight o’ciock the following morning two buzzards 
^ appeared and flew in a circle over the carcass and then dis- 
i appeared. In an hour or two three buzzards appeared and 
alighted near the dead dog, and shortly after several more 
made their appearance and perched on the fence near the 
carcass ; three carrion crows also appeared, but they circled 
high and did not alight. 
The wind was blowing from the southwest and I observed 
the buzzards searched the air persistentiy about forty yards 
from the dog on the northwest side. It was plainly to be 
seen that they were guided by scent. The same wind had 
wafted the odor to their nesting piace on the blufl, nearly a 
mile away. At length they gave up the search and disap- 
peared. 
About the same time of day on the morning foilowing the 
above events, three buzzards appeared and tried it again, 
this time searching the air in all directions, flnaiiy alighting 
near the dog, but faiied to find it and flew away. I expect 
they wiil keep coming if they are not disgusted and dis- 
couraged. 
This setties the question, in my mind, as to how carrion 
I birds find their food. I knew, before making this test, that 
' it was ail nonsense about buzzards finding their food by 
sight. If such was the case they wouid appear as soon as 
the animals they feed on die, whereas they rarely ever ap- 
pear before the second or third day, and it requires hot 
weather, which hastens decomposition, to bring them in- 
side of a week or ten days. 
Both Comstock and Audubon assert that carrion birds 
find their food by sight, but in this they are wrong. Any 
imaz ard,.sj[ttina.on its roost, can- 
not See a dead dog thfee’miies away;' but as soon as decom- 
position sets in he will snifl: it from afar and fly to it. He 
is guided aione by scent; which is very powerfui and acute. 
The scientific gentlemen are “oS ” on this question, as well 
as many others. They tell us the snake does not swallow 
its young, while every old hunter knows that all viviparous 
snakes carry their young in their bellies until they are 
large enough to thke care of themselves. 
Scientists tell us, also, that rabdomanoy, or the use of the 
divining rod, is a humbug and a delusion, and only prac- 
ticed and believed in by the ignorant and superstitious- 
But the divining rod is no more of a humbug than the 
mariner’s compass, which I can demonstrate as clearly and 
conclusively as the simplest problem in mathematics. With 
' the divining rod I can find and locate underground streams 
, with as much certainty and accuracy as surface streams by 
sight. But it is a force that is not recognized by scientific 
men ; it exists, however, and is as positive as gravitation. 
Birdo. 
U-JyCcl 
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