328 CONDOR. 



shapeless mass. Even at two years old the Condor is by no means 

 black, but of an obscure fulvous brown, and both sexes are then desti- 

 tute of the white collar. 



The following description and admeasurements are from a pair of 

 young living birds, said to be nine months old, caught on the Peruvian 

 Andes. One of these (which are precisely alike) was captured by an 

 Indian, who discovering two in the nest, ran up at great speed, fearing 

 to be overtaken by the old ones, and succeeded in securing it by putting 

 it in his pocket, not larger than a full grown chicken. I have carefully 

 compared this with, and found perfectly similar to it, a bill and a quill- 

 feather brought from the Columbia river by Lewis and Clark and pre- 

 served in the Philadelphia Museum. These remains prove the existence 

 of the Condor within the United States, and sufficiently authorize its 

 introduction into this work. 



Length three feet nine inches. Breadth nine feet. Bill to the 

 corner of the mouth two inches six-eighths ; to the cere one inch and a 

 half, to the down three and a quarter inches. Bill curved and hooked, 

 with several flexures ; upper mandible passing over the lower, which is 

 rounded and scalloped : nostrils pervious, rounded-elliptical, cut in the 

 cere. Bill outside, cere, and all the surrounding naked parts black ; 

 ears without any covering, the skin rugose : inside of the bill yellowish 

 white, margined with black, palate furnished with a fleshy skin, having 

 the appearance of a row of teeth in the middle, then of a hard ridge 

 looking like a file, and two marginal rows : tongue broadly concave, and 

 serrated on the turned up edges with sharp pointed cutting serratures : 

 an elevation of the skin indicating the frontal caruncle ; the place where 

 the bristles begin to appear is also indicated by an elevation. Eye full 

 and rounded : iris blackish : membrane of the throat very dilatable : 

 head and neck covered by a thick silky down of a brownish black color ; 

 on the front more dark and bristly ; general color dark brown, each 

 feather having a banded appearance, tipped with more or less of umber ; 

 quill and tail-feathers black, with a gloss of blue. The number of tail- 

 feathers is twelve, the closed wings not reaching beyond, though very 

 nearly to the tip. Feet black : acrotarsus beautifully colligate, acro- 

 dactylus scutellated: the whole leg measures one foot in length, of 

 which the tarsus is five and a quarter inches, and the middle toe and nail 

 six, the nail being one and a half: lateral toes connected with the mid- 

 dle as far as the first joint by a membrane ; the inner two and a half 

 inches long without the nail, which is one and a half; the outer with the 

 nail a quarter of an inch shorter ; hind toe articulated inside, bearing 

 on the ground only with the point of the nail, an inch and a half long, 

 the nail one inch more, and much incurved : sole of the foot granulated : 

 fat part of the heel large and rough. The feet have been generally 

 described as white or whitish, owing to their being commonly stained 



