538 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS: ZOOLOGY. 



at a respectful distance, patiently awaiting the pleasure of this monarch of 

 the air as he occupied not only the head, but all of the table at this most 

 bounteous feast. This survey completed, and having apparently convinced 

 himself that all was plain sailing, he strode quietly up and down the body 

 of the animal once or twice, as though to select the most advantageous 

 position, then coming to a standstill with the legs far apart and one foot 

 firmly planted on the hip and the other on the side, he commenced a most 

 vigorous, even furious attack upon the carcass, using his great sharp and 

 hooked beak as a weapon. Almost instantly a hole was made through 

 the flank and into the abdominal cavity, where at each stroke with the 

 powerful beak considerable sections of the intestines and other organs were 

 torn out and eagerly devoured. . . . During the three years that I spent 

 in Patagonia I had abundant opportunities for observing and noting the 

 manner in which the carranchas and condors attack the fresh carcasses of 

 dead animals, and I always observed it to be similar to that described 

 above. The carranchas always attack the eyes first, then cut out and carry 

 away the tongue by making a hole through the skin at the base of and 

 between the lower jaws, while the condors prefer the abdominal viscera 

 and, in order the more readily to get at these delicacies, they attack the 

 carcass in the region of the flank, where the external abdominal wall is 

 thinnest and protected by very thin skin and a rather scanty covering of 

 hair." 



Cunningham says (Natural Hist. Str. Magell., pp. 113-115): "On the 

 return of the surveying party about noon, they reported that two condors 

 had been seen flying about the top of the cliffs, and that one had been fired 

 at and apparently wounded. Accordingly, soon after, I started to look for 

 them, walking along the beach at the base of the cliffs. On coming nearly 

 opposite the place where they had been reported as seen, I was much 

 excited by suddenly coming within sight of no less than eight of these 

 huge birds, half the number of which were perched on a shelf about mid- 

 way up the cliff, which appeared to be habitually employed as a resting 

 place, as it was whitened with their droppings ; while the remaining four 

 were sailing majestically about in the air, their wings widely extended and 

 the pinions separated so as to produce a jagged edge at the tip. Although 

 the gun which I had with me was only loaded with duck-shot, I felt 

 impelled by an irresistible desire to get a shot at them ; and accordingly, 

 at the expense of much labor and difficulty, managed to scramble up the 



