154 NATURE STUDY. 



The young condor was fed five times each day with the fleshy 

 parts of young rabbits ; at each feed a piece about the size of a wal- 

 nut was given, and it was very fond of the liver. For the first ten 

 days it was fed, and after that time it pecked the food from the 

 hand of the keeper. It took no water, nor was any forced on it. 



I find also, the following in my note-book : — 



July i8. — -The young condor continues to thrive apace, and the 

 good hen that hatched the <i.^^ from which this portentous chick 

 sprung still remains in the elevated cage, and seems very much at- 

 tached to her charge. When feeding — for which purpose she quits 

 the nestling only twice a day, hurrying back as if anxious to re- 

 sume her duty — she is fussy and fidgety (if there be such words) 

 till her hasty meals are ended. The young condor's down is now 

 changed to a more gray hue, and the germs of true feathers begin 

 to show themselves. The head and neck have become blacker, 

 and the budding excrescence of the comb advances. The upper 

 mandible of the bill is slightlj^ movable. The lower extremities 

 are become darker and very stout, but as yet too weak to support 

 the bird's weight. 



May not this local, but no doubt natural weakness, point to the 

 solution of the continued close attention of the hen ? Her duty 

 with her own eggs is to hatch chickens that run very soon after 

 they have left the egg-shell, but till they are strong enough to 

 be able to trust to their lower extremities she keeps them close, 

 " hiving them," as the old wives say, carefully, till these lower ex- 

 tremities, which are, in the nestlings of the gallinaceous tribe, first 

 well developed, shall be sufficiently strong to carry them in search 

 of food and out of danger. The hen, in this instance, finds that 

 her Gargantua of a chick cannot walk, and therefore goes on cher- 

 ishing it and sitting close over it. I saw it fed about three o'clock 

 in the afternoon upon part of a young rabbit, nearly the whole of 

 which it had consumed in the coiirse of yesterday and today. 

 When brought out it shivered its callow wings and opened its 

 m->uth like other nestlings, but it then tittered no cry. It made 

 much use of the tongue in taking the food and in deglutition. 



On my return from making these observations I went to look at 

 the old condors. Military bands were playing, and the wind was 

 \itxy high. Both birds were very much excited, the male especial- 

 ly. He spread and flapped his wings, pursuing the female, as she 

 walked backwards from him, with his beak opposite and close to 

 hers, and gesticulating vehemently and oddly. 



The next entry is a sad one : — 



July 21, 1846. — The young condor, after thriving well to all ap- 



