ti THE CONDOR. 



■eldom exceeds threv^ feet in length and nine and a half 

 feet in extent.* The tail one foot two inches. Thi 

 bill is straight and hooked at the point ; the plumage is white 

 in front, everywhere else of a brownish gray ; head bare of 

 feathers and covered with hard wrinkled skin, scattered ovei 

 with blackish hairs, and it has a collar of white silky down 

 between the bare and the feathered part of the neck. The 

 feet are stout, and the nails long and crooked. 



ILLUSTRATIVE ANECDOTES. 



Sir Francis Head, in his gallop across the Pampas, and 

 his visit to the Andes, frequently encountered Condors. Ho 

 relates the account of a struggle between one of his Cornish 

 miners and a Condor gorged with food, and therefore not in 

 the best state fbr a fray. The man began by grasping the 

 bird round the neck, which he tried to break ; but the bird, 

 roused by the unceremonious attack, struggled so violently 

 as to defeat the plan ; nor, after an hour's struggling, though 

 the miner brought away several of the wing-feathers in 

 token of victory, does it appear that the bird was des- 

 {Kttched. 



The Condor is not only captured with the lasso, but he \a 

 taken by various traps and stratagems. According to Mr. 

 Darwin, the Chilenos are in the habit of marking the treea 



* The term extent^ applied to the desoription of birds, meani tli« 

 4iatMio« from tip to tip of the extended wings. 



