326 CONDOR. 



and whatever other minor animals they can overpower are their usual 

 food. They are also, it is said, extremely fond of crocodiles' and allf 

 gators' eggs, to obtain which they keep watch unseen in the adjacent 

 forest while the female is laying, and as soon as she is gone descend, 

 and removing the sand where they are buried, greedily devour them. 



The Vultures are mostly found in warm climates, although by no 

 means afraid of cold, as they prefer the vicinity of lofty mountains ; 

 those which inhabit in the north retiring southward in winter in the 

 northern hemisphere. Their favorite abodes are rocks and caverns 

 among broken precipices, where they retire to sleep and to digest their 

 meals when overfed, which happens as often as an opportunity oifers : 

 in such retreats they may be often observed in great numbers together, 

 enjoying the exhilarating air of the morning. Their nest is made with 

 hardly any preparation on inaccessible clifis or other places where they 

 can seldom be found by man. They reside generally where they breed, 

 seldom coming down into the plains, except when frost and snow have 

 driven all living things from the heights: they are then compelled to 

 brave danger in pursuit of food. The Vultures generally lay but two 

 eggs at a time, sometimes three or four, especially the North American 

 species ; and are faithfully monogamous. In their mode of supplying 

 their young with food, there is a striking difference between them and 

 other rapacious birds. The latter place before their progeny the qui- 

 vering limbs of their prey, that they may learn to employ their beak 

 and talons. The Vultures, whose claws are not fitted for seizing and 

 bearing off their spoils, disgorge into the mouth of their young the con- 

 tents of their crop, from the nature of which this operation, so interest- 

 ing when performed by a dove or a canary, becomes in this case one of 

 the most disgusting imaginable. 



According to Belon, the Latin name Vultur is but a contraction of 

 volatu tardo : the name Cathartes imagined by Illiger, means in Greek, 

 purger. Condor is a corruption of Cuntur, the true appellation of our 

 species in the Qquicliua language, derived, according to Humboldt, 

 from the vei'b cimturi, to smell. 



Although the largest of American Vultures, the Condor is inferior in 

 size to several of those which inhabit the old continent, and even to the 

 large Golden Vulture of eastern Europe. Both sexes are very nearly 

 of equal size ; but the superiority, if any, is found as usual upon the 

 side of the female ; so that the common statement of writers, that this 

 sex is of less size, has no foundation in fact. 



The adult male is always more than three feet long, and measures 

 nine feet from tip to tip of the extended wings. Some gigantic indivi- 

 duals are met with four feet long and twelve in extent. The bill is 

 dark brown color at the base, somewhat of a lemon white at tip. The 

 tongue is entire, cartilaginous, membranous, ovate-cuneate, concave 



