Remembering the experiments of M. Audubon, on the little
smelling powers of carrion-hawks, I tried in the above-mentioned
garden the following experiment: 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 circumstances 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 intelligence could hardly
have been acquired by sight.
Pages:
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379