COLY— CONDOR loi 



green Amazons beauty, intelligence, and safety by protection are 

 combined. The often surprising adaptation of the coloration of the 

 plumage to the surroundings is well known. Frequently the con- 

 spicuously coloured parts are hidden when the bird is at rest, and 

 are only exposed or shewn — occasionally as " danger signals," to 

 use Mr. Wallace's excellent term— when the bird is on the wing. 

 It cannot be doubted that the sense of colour is highly developed 

 in birds, perhaps most so in the female when choosing a mate ; 

 the result of this sexual selection being constantly regulated by 

 natural selection is exhibited most by the male, but enjoyed by both 

 sexes, and for the benefit of the whole race, 



COLY, Pennant's rendering of the French Colioti, adapted 

 by Binsson from Mohring's Golkis ; which, according to Cuvier, is 

 the Greek koAo6os (see Mouse-bird). 



CONDOR, the Spanish way of writing the Peruvian Cmitur, the 

 Vultur grypkus of Linnseus and Sarcorhamphus gryphus of recent 

 authors, one of the largest of volant birds. The accounts given by 

 early travellers of its size and ferocity were so obviously exagger- 

 ated that the cautious Ray would not admit it into Willughby's 

 Ornithology, and only included it in his own Synopsis Avium (p. 11) 

 after proof that such a bird existed had reached him in the shape 

 of one of its wing-quills brought by Capt. Strong to Sir Hans 

 Sloane from the coast of Chili. Nearly a century passed before 

 European ornithologists saw a complete specimen. This Avas a 

 female which Capt. Middleton brought from the Strait of 

 Magellan and deposited in the Leverian Museum, where it Avas 

 figured in 1791 by Shaw (Mtis. Lev. No. 1, p. 4, pi.) Shortly 

 after, a second specimen, this time an adult male, found its way 

 from the same quarter to the same Museum, and was also figured 

 in 1793 by the same author (op. cit. No. 6, p. 4, pl.)^ But the 

 species was little known on the continent, until in 1806 when 

 Humboldt communicated his classical M6vioire on the bird to the 

 French Institute, and as he was certainly the first scientific man 

 who had made its personal acquaintance in life,^ his account of it 

 deserves the attention with which it has met, and the voracity, 

 stupidity, and tenacity of life of this huge Vulture have through 

 him been long known to the Avorld. Its habits have perhaps been 

 since more fully described by Darwin in his Journal, though that 

 account of them seems to have been unknown to the latest Avriter 

 on the subject, Taczanowski (Ornifhol. PSrou, i. pp. 75-80), who 

 quotes only from D'Orbigny and Stolzmann. Yet a good many 



^ Both these specimens passed into the Museum of Vienna, where they are 

 now preserved (Von Pelzeln, Ihis, 1873, p. 16). 



- As Broderip well remarks Molina can hardly have seen the bird, which he, 

 like Buffon, took to be the same as the Lammergeiser. 



