THE CONDOR. 51 



gorged and unable to fly ; several were standing on (lie ground devouring the carcase ; 

 the rest ho\ering above it. I rode within twenty yards of them ; one of the largest of 

 the birds was standing with one foot on the ground, and the other on the hoise's body ; 

 vnth. a disjilay of muscular strength as he lifted the flesh, and tore off great pieces, 

 sometimes shaking liis head, and pulling with liis beak, and sometimes pushing ^^•ith 

 his leg. 



" Got to Mendoza, and went to bed. Wakened by one of my party who arrived ; he 

 told mo that seeing the condors liovering in the air, and knowing that several of them 

 would be gorged, he had also ridden up to the dead horse, and tliat as one of these 

 enormous birds flow about fifty yards ofi', and was imable to go any farther, he rode up to 

 him ; and then, jumping oft' his horse, seized him by the neck. The contest was 

 extraordinary, and the recoutrc unexiDocted. No two animals can well be imagined less 

 likely to meet than a Cornish miner and a condor, and few could have calculated a year 

 ago, when the one was hoAcring high above the snowy jjinnaclcs of the Cordillera, and 

 the other many fathoms beneath the surface of the ground in Cornwall, that they would 

 ever meet to wrestle and ' hug ' upon the wide desert plain of Villa Yiconcia. My 

 companion said, he had never liad such a battle in his life ; that he jiut his knee upon 

 the bird's breast, and tried with all his strength to t\^-ist his neck ; but that the condor, 

 objecting to this, struggled violently, and that also, as several others were flying over his 

 head, he expected they would attack him. He said that, at last, he succeeded in killino- 

 his antagonist, and with great pride, he showed me the large feathers from his wino-s • 

 but -^A-hcn the third horseman came in, he told. us he had found the condor in the path, 

 but not quite dead." 



iSir Francis also says : — " "\^^acn I was at one of the mines in Chili, I idlv mentioned 

 to a person that I should like to have a condor. Some days afterwards, a Gruacho arrived 

 at Santiago with throe large ones. They had all been caught with a noose, and had been 

 hung over a horse ; two had died of galloping, but the other was alive. I o-ave the 

 Guacho a doUar, mIio immediately left me to wonder what I coidd do with three such 

 enormous birds." 



Humboldt mentions an extraordinary instance of vitality in a condcn- which some 

 Indians at Riobamba liad taken ali^■e. They first strangled it witli a lasso, and hano-ed it 

 on a tree, pulling it forcibly by the feet for several minutes ; yet searcelv \«is the lasso 

 removed, when the bird arose and walked about, as though nothing had occurred to affect 

 it. Three balls were then discharged from a pistol, at less than four paces, all of whicli 

 entered its body, and wounded it in the neck, chest, and abdomen ; it still, however, kept 

 its legs ; another ball now struck its tliigh, and it fell to the ground, but it did not die 

 of its woimds till half an hour afterwards. 



Condors have been, and may stiU be, observed in the gardens of the Zoological Society. 

 Among tlie incidents of the history of one pair, we have tlie following, from the oracefid 

 pen of Mr. Broderip ; — 



" On one occasion, I saw the condors with a newly-laid white egg, some three or four 

 inches long, lying on the naked floor of their prison. There was no appearance of a nest 

 of any kind, and there was something melancholy and yet ludicrous in the hopeless 

 expression with which both the parents looked down at it. They regarded the egg and 

 then each other, as if they woidd have said — if they could — ' ^Vliat are we to do •^^■it]l it 

 now we have got it ?' And the mutual answer of their forlorn eyes and dejected heads 

 was, evidently, ' Nothing.' 



" Well, at last it was proposed that as soon as another egg was laid it should be j^laced 

 xmder a hen. Accordingij^, on the 7th of May, 1846, at half-jDast seven o'clock, a.m. (I 

 must be pardoned, for being somewhat particular on such an occasion), the newly-laid eo-fr 

 was put mider a good motherly-looking nurse of the Dorking breed, and as the colonics of 



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