1834.] THE CONDOR. 133 



feeding on carrion, the condors frequently attack young goats and 

 lambs; and the shepherd dogs are trained, whenever they pass over, 

 to run out, and looking upwards to bark violently. The Chilenos 

 destroy and catch numbers. Two methods are used ; one is to place 

 a carcass on a level piece of ground within an enclosure of sticks with 

 an opening, and when the condors are gorged, to gallop up on horse- 

 back to the entrance, and thus enclose them : for when this bird has 

 not space to run, it cannot give its body sufficient momentum to rise 

 from the ground. The second method is to mark the trees in which, 

 frequently to the number of five or six together, they roost, and then at 

 night to climb up and noose them. They are such heavy sleepers, as 

 I have myself witnessed, that this is not a difficult task. At Valparaiso, 

 I have seen a living condor sold for sixpence, but the common price is 

 eight or ten shillings. One which I saw brought in, had been tied with 

 rope, and was much injured; yet, the moment the line was cut by 

 which its bill was secured, although surrounded by people, it began 

 ravenously to tear a piece of carrion. In a garden at the same place, 

 between twenty and thirty were kept alive. They were fed only once 

 a week, but they appeared in pretty good health.* The Chileno 

 countrymen assert that the condor will live, and retain its vigour, 

 between five and six weeks without eating : I cannot answer for 

 the truth of this, but it is a cruel experiment, which very likely has 

 been tried. 



When an animal is killed in the country, it is well known that the 

 condors, like other carrion-vultures, soon gain intelligence of it, and 

 congregate in an inexplicable manner. In most cases it must not be 

 overlooked, that the birds have discovered their prey, and have picked 

 the skeleton clean, before the flesh is in the least degree tainted. 

 Remembering the experiments of M. Audubon, on the little smelling 

 powers of carrion-hawks, I tried in the above-mentioned garden the 

 following experiment : the condors were tied, each by a rope, in a long 

 row at the bottom of a wall ; and having folded up a piece of meat in 

 white paper, I walked backwards and forwards, carrying it in my hand 

 at the distance of about three yards from them, but no notice whatever 

 was taken. I then threw it on the ground, within one yard of an old 

 male bird; he looked at it for a moment with attention, but then 

 regarded it no more. With a stick I pushed it closer and closer, until 

 at last he touched it with his beak ; the paper was then instantly torn 

 off with fury, at the same moment, every bird in the long row began 

 struggling and flapping its wings. Under the same circumstances, it 

 would have been quite impossible to have deceived a dog. The evidence 

 in favour of and against the acute smelling powers of carrion-vultures 

 is singularly balanced. Professor Owen has demonstrated that the 

 olfactory nerves of the turkey-buzzard (Cathartes aura) are highly 

 developed ; and on the evening when Mr. Owen's paper was read at 

 the Zoological Society, it was mentioned by a gentleman that he had 



* I noticed that several hours before any one of the condors died, all the 

 lice, with which it was infested, crawled to the outside feathers. I was 

 assured that this always happened. 



