IX 
CARRION- VUL TURKS 
195 
of it, and congregate in an inexplicable manner. In most 
cases it must not be overlooked that the birds have discovered 
their prey, and have picked the skeleton clean, before the flesh 
is in the least degree tainted. Remembering the experiments 
of M. Audubon, on the little smelling powers of carrion-hawks, 
I tried in the above-mentioned garden the following ex¬ 
periment : the condors were tied, each by a rope, in a long row 
at the bottom of a wall ; and having folded up a piece of meat 
in white paper, I walked backwards and forwards, carrying it in 
my hand at the distance of about three yards from them, but 
no notice whatever was taken. I then threw it on the ground, 
within one yard of an old male bird ; he looked at it for a 
moment with attention, but then regarded it no more. With a 
stick I pushed it closer and closer, until at last he touched it 
with his beak ; the paper was then instantly torn off with fury, 
and at the same moment every bird in the long row began 
struggling and flapping its wings. Under the same cir¬ 
cumstances it would have been quite impossible to have 
deceived a dog. The evidence in favour of and against the 
acute smelling powers of carrion-vultures is singularly balanced. 
Professor Owen has demonstrated that the olfactory nerves of 
the turkey-buzzard (Cathartes aura) are highly developed ; and 
on the evening when Mr. Owen’s paper was read at the 
Zoological Society, it was mentioned by a gentleman that he 
had seen the carrion-hawks in the West Indies on two occasions 
collect on the roof of a house, when a corpse had become 
offensive from not having been buried : in this case, the intelli¬ 
gence could hardly have been acquired by sight. On the other 
hand, besides the experiments of Audubon and that one by 
myself, Mr. Bachman has tried in the United States many 
varied plans, showing that neither the turkey-buzzard (the 
species dissected by Professor Owen) nor the gallinazo find their 
food by smell. He covered portions of highly offensive offal 
with a thin canvas cloth, and strewed pieces of meat on it ; 
these the carrion-vultures ate up, and then remained quietly 
standing, with their beaks within the eighth of an inch of the 
putrid mass, without discovering it. A small rent was made in - 
the canvas, and the offal was immediately discovered; the canvas 
was replaced by a fresh piece, and meat again put on it, and 
was again devoured by the vultures without their discovering the 
