Following the scent of avian olfaction.

Researchers are gaining greater respect for a bird's ability to foElow its nose, a skill that may he@ it find food or navigate over Long distances It turns out Toucan Sam may not have been a liar after all. In the 197% the bright-billed cartoon spokesbird for Kall&s Froot bops cereal boasted in television ads that he could "follm his nose" to the d ' s '"deli-cious h i t smell." But amused biologists calledSamasham.Thecowaionalwis-d o m , b a s e d o n s t u d i e s o f ~ ~ m y , held thatmoabirdshadliukmnosense ofsmell. Since then, however, retaxwhers have steaddypeckedr&rayatthatidea-They've shown that even birds with relatively small o l f h c t o r y ~ b r a i n ~ ~ i e for-.. g a ~ ~ h f r o m a f i a g r a n t s r o m t t-c a n n o f ~ ~ o d o n , bUtalsousedremta~food,~&lectprime s u c h a s t h e s n o w y ~ l t b a t ~ k t h e deed, Stager noted that some clever wgi-neershadharnessedthevulAne'so~ prowess to find leak8 in mrtural gas p i p e k The sight of circling w l m c o u I d l e a d w w k c r e w s t o ~ , ~ ~ b e c a u s e g a s i s " f l a v d w i t h e t h y 1 ~ tan,achemicalthatsmellsWcarrioa. Meanwhile, behavi obehavi or al Ber-nice Wenzel of the unhemity of CaMbmb, L o s A n g e l e s , w a s ~ t b a t ~ whether the birds use olfactory clues to find