117 



CONCHODERMA. 



CONDOR. 



113 





Th" lobes of the mantle, the thick edges of which form th 

 principal secreting organ, determine apparently the form of the shell. 

 [SHELL, PEARL.] In the Cmcltifera it is bivalve, or composed ot two 

 pieces, often covered with an epidermis, joined at their upper edge 

 (corresponding to the dorsal part of the animal) by a hinge. 



The hinge is entirely formed by the inner layer of shell, and 

 consists of either a simple cardinal process, or a serrated edge, or of 

 projections, or teeth as they are called, and corresponding cavities 

 into which they are inserted. To this hinge is superadded a ligament, 

 which binds the two parts together, and keeps the parts composing 

 the hinge in their places. The ligament is either internal or external, 

 internal when it is hidden by the outside of the cardinal edge, 

 external when it appears beyond it, and is highly elastic, being 

 composed of a number of fibres parallel to each other, and perpendi- 

 cular to the valves which they connect. This is a beautiful 

 contrivance for the necessities of the animal. When undisturbed, the 

 elastic ligament keeps the valves open, and the animal functions are 

 carried on without any effort ; when danger is apprehended, or 

 circumstances require it, the adductor muscle or muscles contract, 

 overcome the resistance of the hinge, and shut the valves close till 

 they may be opened in safety. One of the earliest signs of the loss 

 of vitality in the Conchifers is the more than ordinary wide gaping of 

 the shell. This arises from the state of the adductor muscle, which 

 licinjj relaxed by death is no longer an antagonist to the elastic 

 ligament. 



The common oyster will serve as an example of the Monomyarians, 

 :i?i<l the cuts will give a general idea of the Dimyarians, their shell, 

 and its muscular impressions. 



CONCHODERMA. [CIRRIPEDIA.] 



( '' >Ni :n< iLEPAS. [EXTOMOSTOMATA.] 



CONCHOLOGY is that branch of science which teaches the 

 structure and forms of the shells which are the hard external 

 i'"\-c ring of the animals belonging to the class Molltaca. Although 

 these shells present great variety of forms, and are variously marked, 

 they are only a subsidiary part of the structure of the animals to 

 which they belong. Hence amongst naturalists the shells are only 

 studied in connection with the structure of the animals which 

 inlinl.it them. An account of these animals, with their shells, will 

 be found in the articles MOLLCSCA, BRACHIOPODA, TUNICATA, CONCHI- 

 < JASTKROPODA, PTEROPODA, CEPHALOPODA ; also under the heads 

 of the more important of the families and genera of the Molluca. 



CONDAMINEA, a genus of Plants belonging to the natural order 

 inacete. It has a campanulate calyx, 5-crenate or 5-toothed 

 limb, deciduous; corolla funnel-shaped, with a somewhat curved 

 tube, which is a little longer than the calyx, a dilated throat, and a 

 5-parted limb ; stamens inserted above the middle of the tube or near 

 the throat; anthers oblong, linear, bifid at the base, length of corolla; 

 otigma 2-lobed. Capsule turbinate, truncate, opening in the middle 

 of the cells. Seeds numerous, very small, wedge-shaped. The 

 species are American shrubs, with 2-parted acuminate stipules and 

 terminal many-flowered corymbs. 



C. corymtiota, is a native of the hills and ravines of the Peruvian 

 Andes. It has ovate-oblong leaves, acuminate, cordate, sessile, 

 plicated, coriaceous ; corymbs large, brachiate, trichotomous ; corolla 

 purple externally, with the throat and filaments naked ; teeth of the 

 broad, short, and blunt The bark is febrifugal. The bark- 

 ers of Peru are said to use this plant for adulterating samples of 

 <'n,i'l,,,nii. It* bark is only slightly bitter, and may be easily 

 recognised by its being white inside, rather bitter, and viscid. 



('. tinctoria is a native of South America, and is used occasionally 

 as a dye. 



(I.imlley, \'r/jtt<Mc Kingdom ; Lindley, Flora Medico.) 



CONDOR, or Cuntur, one of the largest Birds belonging to the 

 family Vulturlilif. Of the size and habits of this bird many exagge- 

 rated accounts were at one time current. It was compared to the 

 ' the Arabian romance-writers; nay, by some it was considered 

 identical with that monstrous oriental conception. In the ' Musseum 

 Tradescaritianmn,' under title 'Clawes,' we find " the claw of the bird 

 Rock, who, as authors report, is able to trusse an elephant." Th ! > 

 may have been the claw of a Condor, exaggerated by some of the 

 artists who wrought extraordinary zoological forma for the collectors 

 of the day. Near the passage quoted there is a notice of a toucan's 

 HI'H) bill, and other parts of birds from Brazil and 'the West 

 In the old French-' Encyclopedic,' after noticing Condamine's 

 -'lit, the writer adds that it is believed that these birds exist 

 alo in the region of Sophala, of the Kaffirs, and of Monomotapa, as far 

 as the kingdom of Angola, and that it is supposed that they do not 

 difli'r from those which the Arabians call ' rouh.' 



Ray, in his ' Synopsis,' confesses that such was the enormous and 



' incredible magnitude attributed to it, that he at one time con- 



! the Condor the mere offspring of fiction; that he dared not 



the bird in Willughby'g 'Ornithology;' and that it was to Sir 



, who possessed a feather plucked from the wing of one 



shot on the coast of Chili, and presented to him by Captain Strong, 



who gave him at the same time the measurement of the bird, that he 



firt owed his belief of its existence. 



I ill A corta, Oarcilossn de la Vega, and John de Laet, all speak 

 of this vulture. Acosta says that the birds called Condors are of 



great magnitude, and of such strength that they are not only able to 

 eviscerate and devour a sheep, but even an entire calf. Garcilasso 

 enumerates among the rapacious birds those called Cuntur, and cor- 

 ruptly by the Spaniards Condor, and states that some of those killed 

 by the Spaniards measured 15 or 16 feet from tip to tip of the 

 extended wings. He further observes that nature, in order to temper 

 their ferocity and strength, has denied them the crooked talons which 

 she has bestowed on the eagle, and given them claws more like those 

 of the Gallinaceous Birds ; but that she has however endowed them 

 with a beak sufficiently strong to perforate and tear off a bull's hide, 

 and to rip out its entrails. Two of them, he adds, will dare to attack 

 a cow or a bull, and will devour it ; " neither do they abstain from 

 the human race, but will set upon and slay single-handed boys of ten 

 or twelve years, and it is by a providence of nature, for the protection 

 of the flocks and the natives, that many are not hatched ; for, if they 

 were numerous, they would cause great slaughter among the herds, 

 and the greatest damage to the inhabitants." The account given by 

 John de Laet, who speaks of the ' vasta moles ' of the bird, is much 

 the same with that of Garcilasso. 



In relation to the Condor's alleged attack upon children, Condamine 

 notices a story of the Indians setting up a figure of a child made of 

 very viscous clay ; on this the Condors were said to pounce, and so 

 entangle their claws that they were held fast. 



Abbeville assures his readers that it is twice the size of the most 

 colossal eagle. Desmarchais gives eighteen feet as the extent of the 

 wings, which, he says, are so enormous that the bird can never enter 

 the forest ; and he adds that it will attack a man, and carry off a stag. 

 Linnxus seems to have drawn up his account of the habits of the bird 

 from the writers above noticed, some of whom he quotes. " It preys," 

 says LiiiiKi-us, " on calves, sheep, nay, on boys of ten years ; a pair 

 will tear up and devour a cow ; " and he adds, that the rushing of its 

 wings, as it nears the earth, renders men planet-struck, as it were, and 

 almost deafens them " in terrain devolans, susurro attonitos et surdos 

 fere reddit homines :" he makes the alar extent from 13 to 16 feet. 

 These marvellous stories were left to work upon the minds of men 

 always prone to receive the wild and the wonderful ; for, till within 

 the last forty or fifty years, one or two specimens, and those not perfect, 

 were the only evidences of the Condor hi the cabinets of Europe. 



The Great Vulture of the Andes was a striking instance of the way 

 in which things imperfectly known are exaggerated. " It was with 

 the Condor," observes Vieillot, " as it was with the Patagonians, 

 " both shrank before examination." To the scrutiny of the Baron 

 Von Humboldt and of M. Bonpland we owe the reduction of the bird 

 to its proper dimensions. Nestling in the most solitary places, often 

 upon the ridges of rocks which border the lower limit of perpetual 

 snow, and crowned with its extraordinary comb, the Condor for a 

 long time appeared to the eyes of Humboldt himself as a winged 

 giant, and he avows that it was only the measurement of the dead bird 

 that dissipated this optical illusion. The grand scenery among which 

 it is found had a precisely contrary effect on Lieutenant Maw (' Journal 

 of a Passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic'), who, in describing his 

 descent into the deep and narrow valley of Magdalena, says : " Whilst 

 descending, several condors hovered round us, and about the rocks on 

 which they build their nests ; but so vast was the scale of the rocks 

 and mountains, that even these immense birds appeared quite insig- 

 nificant, and I doubted for a time that they were condors." 



Under the name of Zopilote, a word derived from the Mexican word 

 Tzopilotl, which is said to signify ' King of the Vultures,' M. Vieillot 

 places the Condor in the same genus with the bird usually termed 

 ' the King of the Vultures ' ( Vultur papa of Linmeus and others), and 

 the Californian Vulture ( Vultur Californianw, Latham and others). 

 His Latin name for this genus is Gypayus. Mr. Bennett adopts this 

 arrangement, and, as his description of the bird is accurate, and evi- 

 dently made from personal observation, we give it the preference. 

 " The condor," writes Mr. Bennett, " forms the type of a genus, a 

 second species of which is the Vultur papa of Linntcus, the ' King of 

 the Vultures ' of British writers. They are both peculiar to the New 

 World, but approach in their most essential characters very closely to 

 the vultures of the Old Continent, differing from the latter principally 

 in the large fleshy or rather cartilaginous caruncle which surmounts 

 their beaks ; in the large size of their oval and longitudinal nostrils, 

 placed almost at the very extremity of the cere ; and in the compara- 

 tive length of their quill-feathers, the third being the longest of the 

 series. The most important of these differences the size and position 

 of their nostrils appears to be well calculated to add to the already 

 highly powerful sense of smell possessed by the typical vultures, and 

 for which these birds have been almost proverbially celebrated from 

 the earliest ages. There is also a third species, the Californiau vulture, 

 two noble specimens of which, the only pair in Europe, are preserved 

 in the Society's museum, rivalling the condor in bulk, and agreeing iu 

 every respect with the generic characters of the group, except in the 

 existence of the caruncle, of which they are entirely destitute. 



"In size, the condor is little, if at all, superior to the bearded griffin 

 (the Liimmergeyer of the Alps), with which Buffon was disposed con- 

 jecturally to confound it, but to which it bears at most but a distant 

 relation. The greatest authentic measurement scarcely carries the 

 extent of its wings byond 14 feet; and it appears rarely to attain so 

 gigantic a size. M. Humboldt met with none that exceeded 9 feet, 



