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MONUMENT OF GENGIS KHAN.-A monument of the remotest times of the dominion of the Mongols, was lately sent to St. Petersburg, from the Ural mines. It is a slab of granite, with an inscription in an oriental language engraved on it, and which had been preserved for several years at Nertschinsk, having been found among some ruins on the banks of the little river Konduja, on the frontiers of China.

ANTIQUITIES.-A gold coin, of the value of an English sovereign, was recently dug up at Champagnolle, France, in excellent preservation, having a head of Adrian, with the legend, Hadrianus Augustus Con. III. P. P. (Pater Patria.) As the third consulate of Adrian corresponds to the 119, of our æra, there is no difficulty in determining the exact age of the piece.

DISCOVERY.-Several very ancient tombs have recently been discovered near Stolzenhayn, in Prussia, remarkable for their contents. In one of them, was a sword, two yards long; two battle-axes; two iron lances, and some scissors. In another, beside an urn full of human bones, were two knives, a hatchet and several buckles. All the articles have been deposited in the Museum at Halle.

RARE MEDALS.-While a laborer was digging a well, a few months ago, in the province of Sundermania, an earthen pot was discovered, nearly full of antique rings, a collection of medals, mostly Anglo-Saxon, of the time of king Ethelred, and the German medals of Otho. The treasure weighed 109 oz., and is now offered for sale by the Swedish Government.

METHOD OF PREPARING SKELETONS OF BIRDS.-Having picked off the feathers, give the bird its natural position on a bit of board, by supports of wire, variously arranged. Thus secured, place it in the neighborhood of ant-hills. Those industrious little animals will soon, with the aid they get from flies, present you with a perfectly clean white skeleton, kept together by the original ligaments.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.-Dr. Stephen W. Williams, of Deerfield, Mass., will please accept our thanks for his very interesting manuscript. It will soon be in print.

ORNIS will be served in turn. His whippoorwill need not be melancholy ;-poor bird, we shall not pluck its feathers off at present.

A READER did well to refer our minds to the French story of Josephine, the somnambulist.

THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS IN PHRENOLOGY has been received, and Uncle Toby shall have a FLY to play with by the middle of March.

MORE CIRCLES.-There are enough on hand already.

MR. THOMPSON's paper cannot be inserted, with propriety.

REV. MR. JOHNSON's letter requires no answer.

DR. WILSON's catalogue of plants is not new.

DR. WILLIAMSON shall have an extra number of copies printed as soon as his article is imposed.

T. T.-By some mishap, the manuscript signed T. T., instead of being original, is an exact copy of page 205 of the Encyclopædia Americana. How remarkable it is, that two writers should have had the same ideas, and expressed them in precisely the same veritable English words.

THE BALTIMOREAN' is desired to examine Lawrence's Treatise on the Horse, for a solution of his problem.

W. W. S., of Philadelphia, is very rational in his conjectures: were he ever in Bedlam, he must have been only a visitor.

**Three stars would twinkle to little purpose at noon day. However, under circumstances of peculiar want, when nothing else can be procured, with an operaglass, we intend making observations on their parallax.

MR. STAUGHTON has more talent for BORING, than for making calculations on the curve described by a ball shot from a short rifle.

Poetry must abound in the technicalities of science, to be serviceable in this publication. Our printer knows nothing about CORAL LIPS. With all proper courtesy, we recommend the author to forward his communication to our sublime townsman, the man who manufactures FIRST IMPRESSIONS.'

SCHOOLS.-There is no exertion on the part of teachers to extend their influence in the most decidedly profitable manner, according to our view of things. The es'say with the above signature is miserable. If the writer is a public teacher, he had better sell his estate, and go to the rocky mountains immediately. O, Jemmy Thompson-Thompson Jemmy, O!'

AND

FAMILY LYCEUM.

MARCH 15, 1834.

THE VULTURE.

An account of some experiments made on the habits of the Vultures inhabiting Carolina, the TURKEY BUZZARD* and the CARRION CROW,† particularly as it regards the extraordinary powers of smelling, usually attributed to them.-By J. BACHMAN.

ALTHOUGH the vultures inhabiting the Southern States are among the most common of our larger species of birds-remaining with us during the whole year,-building their nests in the hollows of fallen trees and stumps around our plantations-resting on our housetops and seeking their food around our markets and in the very streets of our cities, yet it appears that a difference of opinion exists with regard to some of their faculties, and particularly whether they find their food by their sense of smell or of sight.

It has been the long established belief of all civilized nations, since the time of the Romans, that vultures were possessed of extraordinary olfactory powers by which they were enabled to scent their food at the distance of many miles. Whether this opinion was founded on truth, or whether it was a vulgar error, having its origin with the thousands of others which have been handed down from age to age, originating in ignorance or superstition, cannot be fully ascertained until satisfactory experiments are made on the olfactory powers of the vultures of Southern Europe, Asia and Africa.

* Cathartes Aura Ill.

† Cathartes Iota Bonn.

All the writers on American Ornithology, have ascribed to the vultures of the United States, the same extraordinary powers of smell, with the single exception of Mr. Audubon, who, in a paper published in Jameson's Journal, Edinburgh, 1826, detailed a series of experiments made in America several years previous, from which he came to the conclusion that these birds are guided to their food altogether by the eye. He found by repeated experiments, that vultures were attracted by a dried deer-skin, stuffed in imitation of that animal, and that in these instances, when no effluvium could exist, they could not have been led to it by the scent. He next concealed a dead animal in the heat of summer, in such a way that it could not be observed by the vultures, although the scent was not obstructed; here it was suffered to decay without having been discovered by these birds.

He next procured two young carrion crows, which he tamed and reared in a cage, the back part of which was so closed that objects approaching from that side could not be seen. Whenever he came with food to the front of the cage, the birds jumped at the bars, commenced hissing and putting their bills towards each other, as if expecting to be fed mutually, as their parent had done; when, however, the cage was silently approached from behind with animals and flesh, however putrid, no movement was made by the birds to indicate their having observed by the effluvium, that their favorite food was near.

The sentiments thus expressed by Audubon, were at the time, and are still, treated with a good deal of severity, both in Europe and in his native country..

It has always appeared to me an act of injustice to condemn any man for expressing an opinion on subjects of Natural History, merely, because from his own investigation, he had arrived at different conclusions from those who had lived before him, particularly when the error could be so easily detected by instituting a similar course of experiments; such a course of conduct would be a bar to all improvements, and the sincere inquirer after truth would have to contend against a host of prejudices from those, who, adopting the opinions of others, refused to

make those inquiries which would satisfy their own minds, that their opinions were fortified and confirmed by experience.

The details of the experiment made by Audubon, are of such a character, that either the conclusions at which he arrived are correct, and our vultures do not possess extraordinary olfactory powers, or he has given to the world an unfair statement, and is therefore not a man of veracity, and is undeserving of the confidence of the community. Should such an impression be unhappily made on the public mind, it will not only have a tendency to destroy his usefulness, but will deprive him of those pecuniary resources which are requisite to enable him to carry on successfully a very expensive publication; a publication which cannot fail to prove a very important acquisition to the natural history of our country-and to establish an abiding monument to the fame of its author.

The lovers of American Ornithology, who feel under many obligations to the man who has devoted so many years of his life to this interesting department of Natural Science, will not condemn him unheard; and those particularly of our Southern States, who would show themselves very careless observers of nature, and very indifferent to the character and fame of Audubon, if, possessing as they do so many favorable opportunities for investigation, they did not institute some inquiries, not only to do an act of justice to a distinguished naturalist, but to ascertain an interesting fact in natural history.

No one who will read Mr. Audubon's paper on the subject, containing a full detail of a number of experiments on the habits of our vultures, can deny, that if he intended to deceive the world, he certainly chose a subject where detection was easy and certain. In our Southern States, these birds are so abundant as to have become a nuisance, particularly in our cities. It is but an act of justice to Mr. Audubon to state, that in his frequent visits to Charleston, he has fearlessly invited investigation on this disputed subject.

During his absence he wrote to me on several occasions, urging me to make further experiments; a number of

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