sight, and vice versa. When I visited the Southern States, and had
lived, as it were, amongst these Vultures for several years, and discovered
thousands of times that they did not smell me when I approached them,
covered by a tree, until within a few feet; and that when so near, or at a
greater distance, I shewed myself to them, they instantly flew away much
frightened; the idea evaporated, and I assiduously engaged in a series
of experiments, to prove to myself, at least, how far this acuteness of
smell existed, or if it existed at all.
I sit down to communicate to you the results of those experiments,
and leave for you to conclude how far and how long the world has been
imposed on by the mere assertions of men who had never seen more than
the skins of our Vultures, or heard the accounts from men caring little
about observing nature closely.
My First Experiment was as follows:—I procured a skin of our common
deer, entire to the hoofs, and stuffed it carefully with dried grass until
filled rather above the natural size,—suffered the whole to become perfectly
dry, and as hard as leather,—took it to the middle of a large open
field,—laid it down on its back with the legs up and apart, as if the
animal was dead and putrid. I then retired about a hundred yards,
and in the lapse of some minutes, a Vulture, coursing round the field tolerably
high, espied the skin, sailed directly towards it, and alighted
within a few yards of it. I ran immediately, covered by a large tree,
until within about forty yards, and from that place could spy the bird
with ease. He approached the skin, looked at it with apparent suspicion,
jumped on it, raised his tail, and voided freely (as you well know all
birds of prey in a wild state generally do before feeding),—then approaching
the eyes, that were here solid globes of hard, dried, and painted clay,
attacked first one and then the other, with, however, no farther advantage
than that of disarranging them. This part was abandoned; the bird
walked to the other extremity of the pretended animal, and there, with
much exertion, tore the stitches apart, until much fodder and hay was
pulled o u t ; but no flesh could the bird find or smell; he was intent on
discovering some where none existed, and, after reiterated efforts, all useless,
he took flight and coursed about the field, when, suddenly wheeling
round and alighting, I saw him kill a small garter snake, and swallow it
in an instant The Vulture rose again, sailed about, and passed several
times quite low over the stuffed deer-skin, as if loth to abandon so good
looking a prey.
Judge of my feelings when I plainly saw that the Vulture, which
could not discover, through its extraordinary sense of smell, that no flesh,
either fresh or putrid, existed about that skin, could at a glance see a
snake, scarcely as thick as a man's finger, alive, and destitute of odour,
hundreds of yards distant. I concluded that, at all events, his ocular
powers were much better than his sense of smell.
Second Experiment.—I had a large dead hog hauled some distance
from the house, and put into a ravine, about twenty feet deeper than the
surface of the earth around it, narrow and winding much, filled with
briars and high cane. In this I made the negroes conceal the hog, by
binding cane over it, until I thought it would puzzle either Buzzards,
Carrion Crows, or any other birds to see it, and left it for two days.
This was early in the month of July, when, in this latitude, a dead body
becomes putrid and extremely fetid in a short time. I saw from time to
time many Vultures, in search of food, sail over the field and ravine in all
directions, but none discovered the carcass, although during this time several
dogs had visited it, and fed plentifully on it. I tried to go near it,
but the smell was so insufferable when within thirty yards, that I abandoned
it, and the remnants were entirely destroyed at last through natural
decay.
I then took a young pig, put a knife through its neck, and made it
bleed on the earth and grass about the same place, and having covered it
closely with leaves, also watched the result. The Vultures saw the fresh
blood, alighted about it, followed it down into the ravine, discovered by
the blood the pig, and devoured it, when yet quite fresh, within my sight.
Not contented with these experiments, which I already thought fully
conclusive, having found two young Vultures, about the size of pullets,
covered yet with down, and looking more like quadrupeds than birds,
I had them brought home and put into a large coop in the yard, in the
view of every body, and attended to their feeding myself. I gave them
a great number of Red-headed Woodpeckers and Parokeets, birds then
easy to procure, as they were feeding daily on the mulberry trees in the
immediate neighbourhood of my orphans.
These the young Vultures could tear to pieces by putting both feet
on the body, and applying the bill with great force. So accustomed to
my going towards them were they in a few days, that when I approached
the cage with hands filled with game for them, they immediately began
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