You will see that the Charleston parson [Bachman], Doctors, Surgeons and Professors are up in arms against me and are determined to cut off the Vulture's nose. But do not be alarmed for me, I promise you that I will answer them to your heart's content and tomorrow I shall send up a paper to Loudon for his May number which will make your Philosophers appear very small and put Audubon's claim to literature and ornithology in so clear a light that no one will be in doubt hereafter.... Audubon's gulled friends and supporters in London are in the highest spirits and feel sure that I cannot answer the Charleston letter. By the first of May next their crowing will cease. When anatomists came to consider the question and found that well developed olfactory lobes and nerves were present in these birds, they favored the theory of smell,[72] and Edinger has more recently expressed the opinion that this consideration renders the possession of an olfactory sense in such birds highly probable. His contention is weakened, however, by the fact that granivorous and insectivorous birds also possess true olfactory nerves, and yet are proved by experiment to have little or no effective sense of smell. It is a problem for students of behavior to solve, and so far as the American vultures are concerned, Audubon's and Bachman's experiments, I believe, have never been repeated or extended with sufficient care to settle the question. The little that has been done, however, suggests that while the vulture in its daily and never ending search for food is mainly guided by its keen eyes, the nose, possibly, may be a coöperating factor when the wind and other conditions are favorable.