THE TURKEY VULTURE. 549 
fishery. Fannin saw two at Burrard Inlet in September, 1880, and _ this 
remains the latest recorded occurrence in the Northwest. 
On the whole it appears improbable that the California Condor was 
ever resident in Washington, certainly not within the memory of the white 
man; and its northern appearances are to be regarded solely as the fishing 
excursions of a Southerner. 
In California these great Vultures were once common, and one observer, 
a Dr. Canfield, of Monterey, claims to have seen as many as one hundred and 
fifty ata time. But their numbers have been greatly reduced thru the agency 
of poisoned carcasses, put out by stockmen and ranchers to protect their 
flocks and herds from bears and wolves. They are still to be found in 
limited numbers in the coast ranges and high Sierras of southern California, 
where they are exceedingly wary save in the vicinity of their nests. 
The flight of the Condor is described as being the perfection of ease, 
for without apparent effort it soars upward until it becomes a mere speck 
in the sky. In this way it is able to command an immense territory, and on 
the occasion of a kill by a hunter appears to come from the invisible blue in 
an incredibly short space of time. 
Being of more robust build than the Turkey Vultures, Condors are able 
to rend fresh carcasses. Companies of them have been known to despatch 
a slain deer in an hour and a grizzly in two. But they do not object to 
steaks a lad Francais if they happen not to arrive till some days later. <A 
feast is not forsaken while the table lasts, and individuals too full to navigate 
have been captured with the lasso. 
The Condor lays its single egg early in March upon the floor of a cave 
or rocky recess of some unfrequented canon, and the successful rearing of 
the young requires five or six months. Messrs. Finley and Bohlman success- 
fully exploited a Condor’s nest in southern California in the spring and 
summer of 1906, and the series of photographs secured by them is not only 
unique for the species, but remains a model for this sort of work. 
No. 222. 
PURE ULE: 
A. O. U. No. 325. Cathartes aura septentrionalis (Wied.). 
Synonym.—TurkeEy Buzzarp. 
Description.—4 du/t: Head and neck all around naked, livid crimson; above 
lustrous black with purple and violet reflections, varied by grayish brown edgings 
of feathers: plumage changing below to more uniform sooty brown, lustrous only 
