NOTE-BOOK OF A NATUR.VLIST. 13 



the ball through the middle of his body, about two inches below 

 the wing, so that he lay down upon the grass without a sino-le 

 flutter. 



Bruce gives the following dimensions of this darino- 

 bird : — 



From wing to wing he was eight feet four inches ; from the tip 

 of his tail to the point of his beak, when dead, four feet seven 

 inches ; he weighed twenty-two pounds, and was very full of flesh. 



But return we to our condor. It affords pregnant 

 evidence of the care and attention exerted by the 

 authorities and keepers of the animals confined in the 

 garden of the Zoological Society of London in the 

 Regent's Park, when we find that so many of them have 

 not only shown a disposition to breed in their captivity, 

 but that not a few have actually reared healthy ojBfsprino-^ 

 under all the disadvantages which a life so different from 

 that intended by Nature must, under any circumstances, 

 produce. Some of these instances, if our notes find 

 favour in your eye, dear reader, -will be hereafter given. 

 At present we beg attention to one where, with every 

 wish to continue the species, the parents seemed to give 

 up incubation as hopeless. 



At the time the present note was taken the female 

 condor in the Regent's Park had laid seven eggs. The 

 first was laid on the 4th of March, 1844; the second on 

 the 29th of April of the same year; the third on the 

 28th of February, 1845 ; the fourth on the 24th of April 

 in that year; the fifth on the 8th of February, 1846; 

 the sixth on the 3rd of April, 1846; and the seventh on 

 the 7th of May, 1847. 



On one occasion I saw the condors with a newly-laid 

 white egg, some three or four inches long, lying on the 

 naked floor of then' prison. There was no appearance of 

 a nest of any kind, and there was something melancholy 

 and yet ludicrous in the hopeless expression with which 

 both the parents looked down at it. They regarded the 



