TlIK rOXDOR. 



•19 



and c'uvL'ivd wiili ;i hard, dry, and wrinkled skin, which is rcddisli, and luiving, here 

 and there, short, stiff, and brown or blackish huii-s. 



The fleshy, or rather cartilaginous, crest of the condor occupies the summit of tlio head 

 and one-fourth of the leno-tli (,f the beak ; but this is entirely wanting in the female. 

 Unbke the cone of a cock, or the flabby cone of the turkey, it is very hard, coriaceous, and 

 furnished with very fine vessels, but cannot be inflated. The eye is singularly elongated, 

 very lively, and of a purple colour. The entire neck is garnished with parallel wrinkles,' 

 placed longitudinally, which arise from the habit of the condor of contracting its neck, and 

 concealing it in the collar, which answers the purpose of a hood. The collar is formed 

 of a fine silken down. 



The rest of the bird, the back, wings, and tail, are of a slightly greyish black. Some- 

 tunes its plumes are of a brilliant black. They are of a triangular figure, and cover one 

 another like tiles. The feet are very robust, and of an ashen blue, ornamented with 

 white wrinkles. The talons are of a blackish colour, slightly crooked, and remarkably 

 long. The four toes arc united by a very flaccid, but easily perceptible membrane. The 

 fourth toe is very small, and its talon most curved. 



rCOT OF TJIE CONDOK. 



IIE.iD OF THE CO.NDOE. 



The size of the condor has often been greatly exaggerated. But it has been with this 

 bird as with the Patagonians, and so many other objects of descriptive natural historj^, — 

 the more they have been examined, the m.ore have their enormous dimensions been foimd 

 to diminish. The average lengtli of the condor, from the point of the beak to the end 

 of the tail, is but three feet three inches. Some indi^ iduals may have attained an extent 

 of -wings of fourteen feet, but this is attributable to a superabundant supply of aliment, 

 or other accidental causes. Perclied in the most solitary stations, often on the crest of the 

 naked rocks which border on the lo^^■er bounds of tlie everlasting snows, and remote from 

 every living being with which it is possible to compare him, the condor appaars in con- 

 trast only with the azure depths of the horizon. Thus isolated, and with the large crest 

 of the male condor, he seems luiich larger than he really is. Ilmnboldt himself was long 

 deceived in this ^^■ay, during his \isits to the desolate summits of volcanic regions. He 

 belii'ved the condors to be of a magnitude truly gigantic ; and ho was only convinced of 

 the eft'ect of this optical illusion by an exact measurement of the bird when dead. 



