470 Letters, Extracts frum Correspondence, Notices, ^'C. 



tree, and the chick from another. There was, properly speaking, 

 no nest ; but the egg was laid in the hollow of a tall old robles- 

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

 peaks, in the vicinity of the Tularcitos, near a place called 

 Conejos. The bii'ds are said, by some hunters, not to make 

 their 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 their eggs in old eagles^ and buzzards' nests, while 

 some affirm they make nests of sticks and moss ; but the truth 

 seems to be that they make no nests. The entire egg weighed 

 10^ ounces, and the contents 8| ounces. The colour of the 

 egg-shell is what painters call "dead dull white;" the surface 

 of the shell is not glossy, but slightly roughened, as in the Sea- 

 pelican's (?) eggs, but not so much. Its figure is very nearly a 

 perfect ellipse, being a model of form and shape in itself. It 

 measured 4- inches in length by 2f inches in breadth (diameter), 

 and was 8| inches in circumference round the middle. The 

 egg-shell, after the contents were emptied (which were as clear, 

 fine, bright, and inodorous as those of a hen's egg, with a bright- 

 yellow yolk), held as much as 9 fluidounces of water. Before 

 the egg was opened, it sank on being placed in water — probably 

 from its being very recently impregnated. Some of the old 

 hunters say the egg is excellent eating ; this one certainly had 

 not the faintest musky odour, nor the slightest foreign smell. 



" The young Condor mentioned above was from five to seven 

 days old, and weighed 10 ounces avoirdupois. The whole skin 

 of this chick was of an ochreous yellow, covered with a dull- 

 white fine down ; the beak was coloured the same as in the old 

 birds ; the skin of the head and neck entirely bare of down, and 

 of ochreous yellow ; the colour of the legs of a deeper shade 

 than that of the body : it had the musky smell of the old birds ; 

 the size and appearance of a two-months-old gosling ; it had 

 only been dead a couple of hours." 



Mr. John Petherick, who has lately returned to this country 

 for a short visit from Khartoum in the Soudan, where he fills 

 the situation of H. B. M.'s Vice-Consul, has brought with him 



