52 TJIE FE.niIEUEl) TKIlii:S. 



hens as well as horses are worthy of note, let it be remembered that her tdlour was white 

 incliiiiii<;' to buff. 



" The place of intuliation was a cage elevated some ^istanco above the floor in one of 

 the aviaries. The hen sat very close. Day after day, week after week, passed away ; 

 still the excellent nurse contiiuied to sit. Day after day, week after week, again rolled 

 on, and the usual period at ^\'hich the anxious feathered mother beholds her natural 

 offspring was left far behind. Still the good nurse sat on, till at last, after aij incubation 

 of fiffii-foiir days, the young condor, on the .30th of June, about six o'clock in the 

 morning, began to break the wall of its procreant prison. The process of hatching was 

 very slow. The J'oung bird was not extricated from the egg imtil after twenty-seven 

 hours, nor was it then released — on the morning of the 1st of July — without the assist- 

 ance of the keeper, who found it necessary to remove the shell, as the membrane had 

 got dry round the nestling. Thus came into this best of all possible worlds, the first 

 condor hatched in England. It had an odd appearance, and seemed to wonder how it had 

 got here. The head appeai-ed to be mis-shapen, for on the top of it was what looked 

 like an amorphous bladder of water, contained between the external skin and the skidl. 

 This gradually disappeared, and when I first saw it, on the 1st of July, about fom- 

 o'clock in the afternoon, the head was properly shaped. It was naked, and of a dark 

 lead colour ; and such was the hue of the just visible comb (showing that it was a male), 

 and of the naked feet. Witli these exceptions the young bird was covered with a dirty- 

 A\hite down, and looked healthy and vigorous. On tlie evening of the day on which it 

 was hatched, it ate part of the liver of a young rabbit." 



Unhappily, however, as the careful naturalist notes, the young condor died in about 

 three weeks. 



