246 OBSERVATIONS ON VULTURES 
towards dead animals, floating in the rivers in India, 
where the wind blows steadily from one point of the 
compass, for months in succession. It was not easy to 
conceive, that the effluvium from a putrid carcass in 
the water, could proceed in direct opposition to the 
current of air, and affect the olfactory nerves of birds, 
at so many miles distant. We were disposed to believe, 
that these birds were directed towards the carrion 
rather by the sense of seeing*, than by that of smelling. 
This opinion is confirmed by the following observations 
of our friend Audubon, communicated to us by him, 
some time ago, for our Philosophical Journal : — 
“ As soon as, like me, you shall have seen the turkey 
buzzard follow with arduous closeness of investigation, 
the skirts of the forests, the meanders of creeks and 
rivers, sweeping over the whole of extensive plains, 
glancing his quick eye in all directions, with as much 
intentness as ever did the noblest of falcons, to 
discover where below him lies the suitable prey ; 
when, like me, you have repeatedly seen that bird pass 
over objects, calculated to glut his voracious appetite, 
unnoticed, because unseen; and when you have also 
observed the greedy vulture, propelled by hunger, if 
not famine, moving like the wind, suddenly round his 
course, as the carrion attracts his eye ; then will you 
abandon the deeply rooted notion, that this bird 
possesses the faculty of discovering, by his sense of 
smell, his prey at an immense distance. 
“ This power of smelling so acutely, I adopted as a 
fact, from my youth. I had read of this when a child ; and 
many of the theorists, to whom I subsequently spoke 
of it, repeated the same with enthusiasm, the more 
particularly as they considered it an extraordinary gift 
of nature. But I had already observed, that nature, 
although wonderfully bountiful, had not granted more 
to any one individual than was necessary, and that no 
one was possessed of any two of the senses in a very 
high state of perfection; that if it had a good scent, it 
needed not so much acuteness of sight, and vice versa. 
