While the snake controversy was acute in America, another of a purely academic character, which assumed even wider proportions, was started on the smelling powers of the vulture. We have already seen a reference to this in the naturalist's letter to his son, Victor, written at Charleston, where he was conducting with Bachman a new series of experiments to settle the question.[68] The idea, commonly accepted, that the scavengers of the Southern States were possessed of a keenness of scent comparable with that of a beagle hound, had been vigorously combated by Audubon, who showed by numerous experiments[69] that they were guided to their prey by the sense of sight only; thus it was found that they would come readily to the effigy of a calf or sheep painted on canvas and set up in plain view, or to a skin stuffed with straw, but failed to detect their quarry when the dead bodies of these animals were placed on the ground and screened from their eyes, if only by the thinnest cover, though the carrion was calling loudly to the nose but a fraction of an inch away. An attack by Waterton,[70] who hurried to the fray whenever a statement in his jealously guarded _Wanderings_ was called in question, led to a lively tilt, in which the advocates of the nose and the eyes were sometimes humorously referred to as the "Nosarians" and the "Anti-Nosarians," some of the most eminent anatomists of the day eventually taking part. Bachman felt keenly the aspersions which were cast upon his friend, and in the winter of 1833 he undertook with Audubon the series of experiments to which we have referred. The tests which were then made supported Audubon's statements in every particular, and the faculty of the Medical College of South Carolina were invited as a body to witness them; this they did willingly, and the following memorial signed by all the witnesses present was published by Bachman in 1834.[71] We, the subscribers, having witnessed several of the experiments made on the habits of the vultures of South Carolina (_Cathartes aura_ and _C. atratus_), commonly called the turkey buzzard and the carrion crow, feel assured that these species respectively are gregarious, the individuals of each species associating and feeding together; that they devour fresh as well as putrid food of any kind, and that they are guided to their food altogether through their sense of sight, and not of smell. In a letter written to Ord, on March 4, 1834, Waterton said: