HATCHING A CONDOR. 153 



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 their 

 prison. There was no appearance of a nest of any kind, and there 

 was something melancholy and yet ludicrous in the hopeless ex- 

 pression with which both parents looked down at it. They regard- 

 ed the egg and then each other, as if they would have said, if they 

 could, "What are we to do with it now we have got it? " And the 

 mute mutual answer of their forlorn eyes and dejected heads was, 

 evidently, " Nothing." 



Well, at last, it was proposed that, as soon as another egg was 

 laid, it should be placed under a hen. Accordingly, on the yth of 

 May, at half past seven o'clock, A. M., (I must be pardoned for be- 

 ing somewhat particular on such an occasion) the newly-laid egg 

 was put under a good motherly looking nurse of the Dorking breed, 

 and, as the colors of hens as well as of horses are worthy of note, 

 let it be remembered that her color was white, inclining to buff. 



The place of incubation was a cage elevated some distance above 

 the floor in one of the aviaries. The hen sat very close. Day after 

 day, week after week, passed away ; still the exellent nurse contin- 

 ued to sit. Day after da}', week after week, again rolled on, and 

 the usual period at which the anxious feathered mother beholds 

 her natural offspring was left far behind. Still the good nurse sat 

 on, till at last, after an incubation oi fifty-four days, the young con- 

 dor, on the 30th of June, 1846, about six o'clock in the morning, 

 began to break the wall of his procreant prison. The process of 

 hatching was very slow. The j^oung bird was not extricated from 

 the ^^% until after twenty-seven hours, nor was it then released — 

 on the morning of the istof July — without the assistance of the 

 keeper, who found it was necessary to remove the shell, as the 

 membrane had got dry round the nestling. Thus came into this 

 best of all possible worlds the first condor hatched in England. 

 It had an odd appearance, and seemed to wonder how it had got 

 here. The head appeared to be misshapen, for on the top of it was 

 what looked like an amorphous bladder of water contained between 

 the external skin and the skull. This gradually disappeared, and 

 when I first saw it, on the same first of Jul}', about four o'clock in 

 the afternoon, the head was properly shaped. It was naked, and 

 of a dark lead color ; and such was the hue of the just visible comb 

 (showing that it was a male) and of the naked feet. With these 

 exceptions the young bird was covered with a dirty white down, 

 and looked healthy and vigorous. On the evening of the day on 

 which it was hatched it ate part of the liver of a young rabbit. 



