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| Crested Vulture by Thomas Bewick |
Idler 22
(Original)
Saturday,
9 September 1758.
By
Samuel Johnson
Edited
by Jack Lynch
[1] Many naturalists are of
opinion, that the animals which we commonly consider as mute, have the power of
imparting their thoughts to one another. That they can express general
sensations is very certain; every being that can utter sounds, has a different voice
for pleasure and for pain. The hound informs his fellows when he scents his
game; the hen calls her chickens to their food by her cluck, and drives them
from danger by her scream.
[2] Birds have the greatest
variety of notes; they have indeed a variety, which seems almost sufficient to
make a speech adequate to the purposes of a life, which is regulated by
instinct, and can admit little change or improvement. To the cries of birds,
curiosity or superstition has been always attentive, many have studied the
language of the feathered tribes, and some have boasted that they understood
it.
[3] The most skilful or most
confident interpreters of the silvan dialogues have been commonly found among
the philosophers of the East, in a country where the calmness of the air, and
the mildness of the seasons, allow the student to pass a great part of the year
in groves and bowers. But what may be done in one place by peculiar
opportunities, may be performed in another by peculiar diligence. A shepherd of
Bohemia has, by long abode in the forests, enabled himself to understand the
voice of birds, at least he relates with great confidence a story of which the
credibility may be considered by the learned.
[4] “As I was sitting, (said
he) within a hollow rock, and watching my sheep that fed in the valley, I heard
two vultures interchangeably crying on the summit of the cliff. Both voices
were earnest and deliberate. My curiosity prevailed over my care of the flock;
I climbed slowly and silently from crag to crag, concealed among the shrubs,
till I found a cavity where I might sit and listen without suffering, or giving
disturbance.
[5] “I soon perceived, that my
labour would be well repaid; for an old vulture was sitting on a naked
prominence, with her young about her, whom she was instructing in the arts of a
vulture's life, and preparing, by the last lecture, for their final dismission
to the mountains and the skies.
[6] “‘My children,’ said the
old vulture, ‘you will the less want my instructions because you have had my
practice before your eyes; you have seen me snatch from the farm the houshold
fowl, you have seen me seize the leveret in the bush, and the kid in the
pasture, you know how to fix your talons, and how to balance your flight when
you are laden with your prey. But you remember the taste of more delicious
food; I have often regaled you with the flesh of man.’ ‘Tell us,’ said the
young vultures, ‘where man may be found, and how he may be known; his flesh is
surely the natural food of a vulture. Why have you never brought a man in your
talons to the nest?’ ‘He is too bulky,’ said the mother; ‘when we find a man,
we can only tear away his flesh and leave his bones upon the ground.’ ‘Since
man is so big,’ said the young ones, ‘how do you kill him. You are afraid of the
wolf and of the bear, by what power are vultures superior to man, is man more
defenseless than a sheep?’ ‘We have not the strength of man,’ returned the
mother, ‘and I am sometimes in doubt whether we have the subtilty; and the
vultures would seldom feast upon his flesh, had not nature, that devoted him to
our uses, infused into him a strange ferocity, which I have never observed in
any other being that feeds upon the earth. Two herds of men will often meet and
shake the earth with noise, and fill the air with fire. When you hear noise and
see fire which flashes along the ground, hasten to the place with your swiftest
wing, for men are surely destroying one another; you will then find the ground
smoaking with blood and covered with carcasses, of which many are dismembered
and mangled for the convenience of the vulture.’ ‘But when men have killed
their prey,’ said the pupil, ‘why do they not eat it? When the wolf has killed
a sheep he suffers not the vulture to touch it till he has satisfied himself.
Is not man another kind of wolf?’ ‘Man,’ said the mother, ‘is the only beast
who kills that which he does not devour, and this quality makes him so much a
benefactor to our species.’ ‘If men kill our prey and lay it in our way,’ said
the young one, ‘what need shall we have of labouring for ourselves.’ ‘Because
man will, sometimes,’ replied the mother, ‘remain for a long time quiet in his
den. The old vultures will tell you when you are to watch his motions. When you
see men in great numbers moving close together, like a flight of storks, you
may conclude that they are hunting, and that you will soon revel in human
blood.’ ‘But still,’ said the young one, ‘I would gladly know the reason of
this mutual slaughter. I could never kill what I could not eat.’ ‘My child,’ said
the mother, ‘this is a question which I cannot answer, tho' I am reckoned the
most subtile bird of the mountain. When I was young I used frequently to visit
the ayry of an old vulture who dwelt upon the Carpathian rocks; he had made
many observations; he knew the places that afforded prey round his habitation,
as far in every direction as the strongest wing can fly between the rising and
setting of the summer sun; he had fed year after year on the entrails of men.
His opinion was, that men had only the appearance of animal life, being really
vegetables with a power of motion; and that as the boughs of an oak are dashed
together by the storm, that swine may fatten upon the falling acorns, so men
are by some unaccountable power driven one against another, till they lose
their motion, that vultures may be fed. Others think they have observed
something of contrivance and policy among these mischievous beings, and those
that hover more closely round them, pretend, that there is, in every herd, one
that gives directions to the rest, and seems to be more eminently delighted
with a wide carnage. What it is that intitles him to such pre-eminence we know
not; he is seldom the biggest or the swiftest, but he shews by his eagerness
and diligence that he is, more than any of the others, a friend to vultures.’”
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