142 On the LqfUj Flight of the Condor. 



The vegetation is scanty, merely a few shrubs, mostly a species 

 of balsam> skirting the sides of the mountains. The land about 

 El Katiff' on the main, twenty miles further to the westward of 

 Bahrain, is of moderate height,, and not of any considerable ex- 

 tent. All the coast to the eastward of Bahrain is very low and 

 sandy, until it joins the mountains over Cape Mussendom. 



On the Lofty Flight of the Condon-. 



Next to the Condor, the Lammergeier of Switzerland and the 

 Falco destructor of Daudin, which is probably the same as the 

 Falco Harpya of Linnaeus, are the largest flying birds. 



The region which may be considered as the habitual abode of 

 the Condor, begins at a height equal to that of Etna, and com- 

 prehends strata of air at an elevation of from 9600 to 18,000 

 feet above the level of the sea. The largest individuals that 

 are met with in the chain of the Andes of Quito, are about four- 

 teen feet from the tip of one wing to that of the other, and the 

 smallest only eight. From these dimensions, and from the vi- 

 sual angle under which this bird sometimes appears perpendi- 

 cularly above our heads, it may be judged to what a prodigious 

 height it rises when the sky is cl^ar. When seen, for example, 

 under an angle of four minutes, it must be at a perpendicular 

 distance of 6876 feet. The Cave of Antisana, situated op- 

 posite the mountain of Chussulongo, and from which we mea- 

 sured the bird soaring, is situated at a height of 12,958 feet 

 above the level of the Pacific Ocean. Thus, the absolute height 

 which the Condor attained, was 20,834 feet, an elevation at 

 which the barometer scarcely rises to 12 inches. It is a some- 

 what remarkable physiological phenomenon, that this bird, which 

 for hours continues to fly about in regions where the air is so 

 rarefied, all at once descends to the edge of the sea, as along the 

 western slope of the volcano of Pichincha, and thus in a few 

 minutes passes as it were through all the varieties of climate. 

 At a height of 20,000 feet, the air-cells of the Condor which 

 are filled in the lowest regions, must be inflated in an extraor- 

 dinary manner. Sixty years ago, Ulloa expressed his astonish- 

 ment at the circumstance that the vulture of the Andes could fly 



