CALIFOKNIA CONDOR 11 



skilled in singing ancient songs and executing dances relating to the mythology 

 of the ceremony, would perform. The dancing and singing continued until 2 or 3 

 o'clock in the morning. About this time the bird was brought in and danced 

 with around the fire and passed from one performer to another. Finally the 

 chief would seize the bird, now nearly dead with rough handling and suffocation. 

 It was supposed to be killed by magic, without the shedding of blood, but was 

 practically put to death by twisting its backbone or by pressure on its heart. 

 It was then skinned, the feathers being saved for future dancing skirts, and the 

 body placed in a hole within the circle of performance. Old women then gathered 

 about the place of interment, threw seeds and food on the carcass, asked enig- 

 matic questions of the dead bird, and Indulged in weeping and lamentations. 

 After the usual exchange of presents, wearing apparel and food, the party 

 dispersed. 



I examined two condor-feather dancing skirts that contained 48 and 70 plumes, 

 respectively. The plumes were fastened at the quill end to cord belts made 

 of twisted strands of milkweed fibers. The primaries were placed at ends 

 of the belt, the secondaries and tail feathers in the middle. One of the skirts 

 was made from a condor that was shot at the reservation in 1926. 



Winter. — Mr. Scott has this to say about the concentration of con- 

 dors in winter : 



After the condor chick is half a year old and able to perch about the 

 ancestral cave, the condors of a region congregate in compnnies as do the 

 turkey vultures. Tlie buzzards go south or gather along the California coast 

 in "roosts", but the condors are nonmigratory. In earlier times, however, 

 they were accustomed, no doubt, to move over wide areas. Pioneers testify 

 that in the sixties and seventies within their chosen range flocks of condors 

 were fully as large as those of buzzards. Where food was plentiful they often 

 gathered in enormous numbers. One such concentration was witnessed by 

 Hector Angel, of Mesa Grande. In March 1886, just after the buzzards had 

 returned, a late snow killed 3,000 lambs on the famous Warner Ranch. 

 Angel rode for a mile through acres of turkey vultures and condors. "There 

 may have been 1,000 condors and 5,000 buzzards for all I can tell", he declared. 



Nowadays it is rare for an individual condor to leave the protection of the 

 Santa Barbara National Forest at any season. But the remnant gather 

 as of old for social or feeding purposes. I had the good fortune to witness 

 the activities of a band of 15 on the ranch of Eugene Percy, 8 miles northeast 

 of Fillmore, on January 17, 1936. There were several dead cattle on the 

 ranch and condors were in the sky all day. Twice the company of 15 sailed 

 overhead. They glided and spiraled and shot through the air like rockets. 

 They wheeled about old carcasses, sometimes alighting in trees or on the 

 ground. In the evening they went to roost in groups of two to five in dead 

 trees on the mountainsides, where it was possible to ride a horse around a 

 tree without making them take wing. Only three days before, my host had 

 counted 30 in the sky at once and had surprised a flock of 12 at the carcass of 

 a dead calf. 



DISTRIBUTION 



Range. — Western and Southern United States and northern Lower 

 California. Nonmigratory. 



The California condor is now greatly reduced in numbers and is 

 confined to the south-central coast ranges of California from Monte- 



