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, with 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 smoking 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 flock 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, though I am reckoned the most subtle bird of the mountain.  When I was young, I used frequently to visit the aerie 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 fallen 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 entitles him to such preeminence we know not; he is seldom the biggest or the swiftest, but he shows by his eagerness and diligence that he is, more than any of the others, a friend to the vultures.”

[1] This was the original No. 22, but on the republication of the work
    in volumes, Dr. Johnson substituted what now stands under that head.

END OF VOL.  IV.