Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, vol 2.djvu/69



habits of this species are so intimately connected with those of the Turkey Buzzard (Cathartes Aura), that I cannot do better than devote this article to the description of both. And here, I beg leave to request of you, reader, that you allow me to present you with a copy of a paper which I published several years ago on the subject, and which was read, in my presence, to a numerous assemblage of the members of the Wernerian Natural History Society of Edinburgh, by my friend Mr the Secretary of that Society. It is scarcely necessary for me to apologise for introducing here the observations which I then narrated, more especially as they referred principally to an interesting subject of discussion, which has been since resumed. They are as follows:—

"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 deeplyrooted 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