m to appeal to _augury_ to decide the question.
Augury was a mode of ascertaining the divine will in respect to
questions of expediency or duty, by means of certain prognostications
and signs. These omens were of various kinds, but perhaps the most
common were the appearances observed in watching the flight of birds
through the air.

It was agreed between Remus and Romulus, in accordance with the advice
of Numitor, that the question at issue between them should be decided
in this way. They were to take their stations on the two hills
respectively--the Palatine and the Aventine, and watch for vultures.
The homes of the vultures of Italy were among the summits of the
Appenines, and their function in the complicated economy of animal
life, was to watch from the lofty peaks of the mountains, or from the
still more aerial and commanding positions which they found in soaring
at vast elevations in the air, for the bodies of the dead,--whether of
men after a battle, or of sheep, or cattle, or wild beasts of the
forests, killed by accident or dying of age,--and when found to remove
and devour them; and thus to hasten the return of the lifeless
elements to other forms of animal and vegetable life. What the earth,
and the rite of burial, effects for man in advanced and cultivated
stages of society, the vultures of the Appenines were commissioned to
perform for all the animal communities of Italy, in Numitor's time.

To enable the vulture to accomplish the work assigned him, he is
endowed with an inconceivable strength of wing, to sustain his flight
over the vast distances which he has to traverse, and up to the vast
elevations to which he must sometimes soar; and also with some
mysterious and extraordinary sense, whether of sight or smell, to
enable him readily to find, at any hour, the spot where his presence
is required, however remote or however hidden it may be. Guided by
this instinct, he flies from time to time with a company of his
fellows, from mountain to mountain, or wheels slowly in vast circles
over the plains--surveying the whole surface of the ground, and
assuredly finding his work;--finding it too equally easily, whether it
lie exposed in the open field, or is hidden, no matter how secretly,
in forest, thicket, grove or glen.

It was, to certain appearances, indicated in the flight of these
birds--such as the number that were seen at a time, the quarter of the
heavens in which they appeared, the direction in whic