VULTURID.^ — THE VULTURES— CATIIARTES. 499 



The illustrations given ^yitll tlie articles, representing the male flying, the 

 female standing, tlie newly hatched young, and the eggs, are the best I have 

 ever seen of this bird, having been taken from life by W. JI. Ord. The 

 male, however, is represented as carrying oft' a hare in its clair^, — a doubtful 

 circumstance, as these vultures are not addicted to canying dead animals, for 

 which their straight, weak claws and toes are poorly adapted. The young 

 are fed by food disgorged from the crop of the old bird, not carried in its 

 claws. 



Mr. Taylor ^\Tites : " In January, 18."i8, a large condor ^\'as killed by 

 Jlr. S. B. AVright, near St. Helena, in Xapa County, while Hying oft' with a 

 nine-pound hare it had Idlled." [?] " The bird measured fourteen feet from 

 tip to tip of wings." He also mentions others said to measure eleven and 

 twelve feet ; but as those he measured himself only measured eiglit to nine 

 feet in extent, and knowing the tendency of newspaper contributors to exag- 

 gerate, we may set this down as their usual stretch of wings. Douglas's 

 largest was nine feet three inches in extent. 



The following are extracts from ilr. Taylor's article : — 



" One of the rancheros of the Carmelo, in hunting among tlie higliest peaks 

 of tlie Santa Lucia Range, during the last week of April, disturlicd two 

 condors from their nests, and at great risk of lireakiiig his neck, etc., brouglit 

 away a young bird of six or seven days old, and also an egg, — the egg from 

 one tree, the cliick from anotlier. There was, jjroperly speaking, no nest, 

 but the egg was laid in the hollow of a tall old rol)les-oak, in a steep 

 barranca, near the summit of one of the highest peaks in the vicinity of tiie 

 Tularcitos, near a place called 'Conejos.' The birds are said Ijy some 

 hunters not to make nests, but simply to lay their eggs on the ground, at 

 the foot of old trees, or on the bare rocks of solitary peaks ; others say they 

 lay in old eagles' or buzzards' nests, while some affirm they make nests of 

 sticks and moss ; but the truth seems to be, they make no nests." (Only a 

 slight one " of a few loose sticks thro^\^^ negligently together," according to 

 Heermann, who saw several in the Sierra Nevada.) " The egg weiohed ten 

 and a half ounces, and the contents eight and three (quarter ounces. The 

 color of the egg-shell is what painters call ' dead, dull white,' the surface 

 not glossy, but slightly roughened. Its form is very nearly a perfect ellipse. 

 It measured four and a lialf inches in length by two ami three eighth inches 

 in breadth, and was eight and tliree quarters inches in circumference. Tlie 

 egg-shell, after the contents were emptied (\\'hich were as clear, fine, bright, 

 and inodorous as those of a hen's egg, with a bright yellow yolk), held as 

 much as nine fluid ounces of water. Some of the old hunters say the egg 

 is excellent eating." The weights used were avoirdupois, except the fluid 

 ounce. " The young mentioned above is from five to seven days old, and 

 weighed ten ounces. The whole skin is of an ochreous yellow, and co\-ered 



