CALIFORNIA CONDOR 6 



The condor is no nest builder but lays its single egg on the bare 

 soil, gravel, or rocky floor of some more or less inaccessible cave 

 or crevice in a cliff, or under rocks or boulders on the side of a 

 mountain canyon. Sometimes the crevice is barely large enough 

 to admit the bird and at other times it is quite open. H. R. Taylor 

 (1895) tells of a nest in a large open cave "about 20 feet wide, 30 

 feet high, and 16 feet deep" in a cliff 120 feet high on the south 

 side of a mountain. "The nest was on the bare stone. In front was 

 a slight ridge of decomposed stone, which had been raked up by 

 the bird to keep the egg from rolling out, while on the other side 

 was the bare rock." Bendire (1892) mentions, apparently on hear- 

 say evidence, "the eggs having been laid in the hollow of a tall old 

 robles oak, in a steep barranca, near the summit of one of the highest 

 peafe." Again he says that "it is possible that at times they make 

 use of the abandoned nests of the Golden Eagles." Both of these 

 statements seem doubtful and need confirmation. 



A nest found in San Luis Obispo County is thus described by 

 W. L. Dawson (1923) : 



The aperture of the nesting cave was midway of the face of a sloping 

 stretch of sandstone, not too steep, perhaps, for inspection without the aid 

 of a rope, but too steep for comfortable work. The entrance was just twelve 

 inches high in the clear and nineteen inches wide; but the struggles of the 

 emerging birds had broken out fragments of the thin wall on each side, so 

 that three inches of this total width was plainly "artificial." This opening 

 gave access to a lens-shaped cavity some six feet in horizontal depth by 

 ten in length and two or two and a half feet high in the clear. The floor 

 was of fine dry sand several inches in depth, and upon this at the remotest 

 distance a baby Condor hissed and roared. 



There are three California condors confined in a large flying 

 cage in the National Zoological Park in Washington. They were 

 received, as birds of the year, in 1901 and 1903. Two of them 

 are supposed to be a mated pair. When about 12 years old one of 

 these birds laid an egg on the bare floor of a large wooden shelter, 

 and she has continued to lay an egg nearly every year since. But 

 the eggs have never hatched, even when placed in an incubator. 



Eggs. — The California condor lays only one egg in a season; 

 and apparently it does not lay every year; hence it reproduces 

 very slowly. The egg is quite elongated, varying in shape from 

 elliptical-ovate to elongate-ovate. The shell is finely granulated 

 and without gloss when fresh ; after it has been incubated for some 

 time it becomes smoother and glossier. Some specimens have small 

 pimples or wartlike excrescences on the surface. The color is plain 

 greenish white, bluish white, or dull white. The measurements 

 of 46 eggs average 110.2 by 66.7 millimeters; the eggs showing 

 the four extremes measure 120 by 68, 110.5 by 71, 102.4 by 67.4, 

 and 103.6 by 62.9 millimeters. 



