CONDOR. 269 



lemon color; both sides of the neck, from the ears downwards, of a rich scarlet; 

 behind the corrugated part there is a white spot. The crown of the head is scarlet, 

 betwixt the lower mandible and the eye, and close by the ear there is a part which 

 has a fine silvery-blue appearance. Just above the white spot a portion of the skin is 

 blue and the rest scarlet; the skin which juts out behind the neck, and appears like 

 an oblong caruncle, is blue in part and in part orange. The bill is orange and black, 

 the caruncles on the forehead orange, and the cere orange, the orbits scarlet, and the 

 irides white." 



Unlike its near relative, the condor, it is strictly a bird of the forest, not often met 

 with among the mountains, but preferring the wooded banks of rivers, the depths of 

 impenetrable swamps, and the margins of broad savannas or stagnant marshes. It 

 gets its common name of ' king ' from the belief of the Indians that the other vultures 

 stand in awe of it, and will not venture to eat until after the royal appetite is satisfied ; 

 and there appears to be considerable ground for this belief, although its size is less 

 than that of the turkey-buzzard, and it seems to be even more sluggish. 



The condor, jSarcorhamphus gryphus, has iisually been considered the largest of 

 the birds of prey, and the most absurd stories have been told of its strength and dar- 

 ing. In point of fact there are several Old World species fully as large, and some of 

 them probably a little larger, while the Californian vulture frequently reaches the 

 same size. Probably the condor never exceeds twelve feet in expanse of wing, and 

 even this size can be attained but rarely, the average being probably within a few 

 inches of nine feet. In an article by Professor Orton on "The Condors of the Equa- 

 torial Andes," we are told that " Humboldt never found one to measure over nine 

 feet ; and the largest specimen seen by Darwin was eight and a half feet from tip 

 to tip. An old male in the Zoological Gardens of London measures eleven feet. 

 Von Tschudi says he found one with a spread of fourteen feet ten inches, but he in- 

 validates his testimony by the subsequent statement that the full-grown condor meas- 

 ures from twelve to thirteen feet." 



Yet up to the time when Humboldt visited the Andes and actually measured the 

 freshly killed birds, the wildest statements were made with regard to the size and 

 strength of the condor, from thirty to forty feet being set down as a fair figure for the 

 expanse of wing. Humboldt himself was at first deceived, and was astonished to 

 find that birds which, while perched on the lofty summits of the volcanic crags, ap- 

 peared truly gigantic, were in reality always less than four feet in length, and with an 

 expanse of wing never over nine feet. Perhaps the illusion may be in part accounted 

 for by the lack, in such situations, of all objects for comparison, but, as Darwin has 

 thoughtfully suggested, it may be "fully as much owing to the transparency of the air 

 confounding objects at different distances, and likewise partly to the novelty of an 

 unusual degree of fatigue arising from a little exertion, habit being thus opposed to 

 the evidence of the senses." 



The strength of the condor has also been much exaggerated, and the stories of its 

 carrying off sheep, and even children, in its claws are at once shown to bo imaginary, 

 not only by the failure to establish a single authentic case of the kind, but by the 

 structure of the foot itself, which is not well adapted for grasping, the hind toe being 

 very small and above the level of the rest, while the claws on all the toes are blunt 

 and little curved, so that it may well be doubted, not that the condor could kill a sheep 

 or a child, but that, having done so, it could then grasp it and carry it away. This 

 same structure of the foot makes it difficult for the condor to perch on a tree, espe- 



