290 AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



Time was when the range of the condor extended from the Colum- 

 bia River southward, possibly into Lower California; now they are 

 seldom if ever found north of Mt. Shasta nor south of the Mexican 

 line. Along the eastern side of the great vSan Joaquin and Sacramen- 

 to valleys, in the heart of the cliffs and crags of the high sierras that 

 line both of these valleys, running back almost to the boundary line of 

 the state is the center of abundance of these birds. From out these 

 hills the big birds can come down into the lowlands where there are 

 yet quite a few cattle and sheep, and, mingling with the lesser birds of 

 prey, pass practically unnoticed by the average person. On the desert 

 side of the mountains there is little for them to get in the way of food, 

 and, though I have seen several of the big birds on the coast side, I 

 never saw one on either the Mojave or the Colorado deserts in a stay 

 of several months in each. A hundred miles, more or less, is of little 

 count to birds of the wing power of these and they frequently cover 

 great distances in the search for food, yet they are much addicted to 

 the use of one cliff for a roosting place at night and one cave for a 

 home wherein to rear their solitary young. They never band together 

 as do the turkey vultures, notwithstanding reports to the contrary oc- 

 casionally given out by old hunters and prospectors who would not 

 know a condor from a golden eagle in a crowd. In fact, so far as I 

 have been able to learn in several years past, there are not enough 

 condors in the entire state of California to make a respectable band 

 should they all get together at once. I do not mean by this that the 

 condor is on the rapid road to extinction for they have learned the 

 lesson which the Great Auk was unable to grasp and have moved out 

 of man's way before it is forever too late. The gradual disappearance 

 of the California Vulture from the haunts that once knew it so well has 

 always been something of a puzzle to me; of all birds it had the least 

 to fear from man, being gifted with acute senses of smell and sight to 

 warn it of danger and powerful wings to bear it to safety when that 

 danger became real. The auk that once filled Funk Island with its 

 cries could not escape, the Labrador Duck passed into oblivion prob- 

 ably before men had become abundant enough on this continent to 

 notice it as different from other ducks, but why did the Condor go? 



In Ventura and Los Angeles and Orange and San Diego counties 

 there are yet a few, very few, condors, and they are but rarely to be 

 seen. The two homes of the bird that I have had the pleasure of 

 visiting were in Orange and Los Angeles counties; both were very 

 much alike in point of general situation and both were found by the 

 previous knowledge that the birds inhabited a certain canyon which 

 was followed up until it ended in the cliff wherein was situated the cave 



