CALIFOKNIA CONDOR 7 



prefers to feed on a freshly killed animal. Baird, Brewer, and 

 Ridgway (1905) have covered the subject very well, as follows: 



Often when hunting in the Tejou Valley, if unsuccessful, they would be 

 several hours without seeing one of this species ; but as soon as they succeeded 

 in bringing down any large game, these birds would be seen rising above the 

 horizon before the body had grown cold, and slowly sweeping towards them, 

 intent upon their share of the game. In the absence of the hunter, unless 

 well protected, these mai-auders will be sure to drag out from its concealment 

 the slain animal, even though carefully covered with branches. Dr. Heermann 

 states that he has known them to drag out and devour a deer within an hour. 

 This vulture possesses immense muscular power. Dr. Heermann has known 

 four of them to drag the body of a young grizzly bear, that weighed over a 

 hundred pounds, the distance of two hundred yards. Dr. Cooper states that 

 it visits the Columbia River in autumn, when its shores are lined with gi-eat 

 numbers of dead salmon, on which, in company with other birds and various 

 animals, it feasts for a couple of months. 



Behavior. — The flight of the California condor is a superb exhibi- 

 tion of graceful ease and grandeur as it floats steadily along on its 

 great wings, a powerful and skillful master of the air. On account 

 of its great size its flight seems slow, but it really travels very fast ; 

 a mere speck in the distant sky rapidly develops into a great black 

 bird, sweeping overhead with seven or eight strokes of its white-lined 

 wings, curved upward at the tips, followed by prolonged periods of 

 graceful sailing, until, all too soon, it disappears in the distance. 

 From its perch on a tree or rock the bird launches itself with a few 

 great flaps into a glorious sailing flight; but when rising from the 

 ground it must run, hop, and flap along for 50 or 60 feet before 

 taking the air, much like the take-off of an airplane. Then it soars 

 in wide circles, mounting higher and higher on the ascending cur- 

 rents of warm air, until it is almost lost to sight in the ethereal blue. 

 Illustrating its mastery of the air, Mr. Dawson (1923) relates the 

 following incident, as witnessed by Claude C. L. Brown : 



Just because the sails of this bird are so accurately trimmed for the utiliza- 

 tion of light breezes, the craft itself is unable to make headway against a 

 strong wind. Not even by flapping can the Condor negotiate a breeze above a 

 certain intensity. What the bird does in such an emergency is best told by 

 Brown, who was once present on a quite critical occasion. * * * Presently 

 he descried four Condors approaching from the far northeast, but before they 

 came up a smart breeze sprang up from the southwest, and presently it 

 whistled over the peaks with increasing fury. The birds were baffled on the 

 very last mile of their approach. They tacked back and forth, down wind, 

 or struggled valiantly in the teeth of the gale, only to be swept away again and 

 again. The cold sea breeze had it in for them, and though it was only mid- 

 afternoon, it began to look to the observer like a case of sleeping out that 

 night. But off to the southeastward some twenty or thirty miles, the Carisso 

 plains lay baking in the sun. The focal point of this great oven was sending 

 up a huge column of heated air, as evidenced by clouds slowly revolving at the 

 height of a mile or so above the plain. What followed can best be given in Mr, 



