The Count of Monte Cristo

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dunghill is a hen, who, pecking these intestines, is in her turn taken
ill, and dies next day. At the moment when she is struggling in the
convulsions of death, a vulture is flying by (there are a good many
vultures in Adelmonte's country); this bird darts on the dead fowl,
and carries it away to a rock, where it dines off its prey. Three days
afterwards, this poor vulture, which has been very much indisposed since
that dinner, suddenly feels very giddy while flying aloft in the
clouds, and falls heavily into a fish-pond. The pike, eels, and carp eat
greedily always, as everybody knows--well, they feast on the vulture.
Now suppose that next day, one of these eels, or pike, or carp, poisoned
at the fourth remove, is served up at your table. Well, then, your guest
will be poisoned at the fifth remove, and die, at the end of eight
or ten days, of pains in the intestines, sickness, or abscess of the
pylorus. The doctors open the body and say with an air of profound
learning, 'The subject has died of a tumor on the liver, or of typhoid
fever!'"