252 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS. 



those mountains, although situated in 29 to 30 degrees of latitude, 

 as accessible as the Peruvian Andes within the tropics. Captain 

 Gerard has attained on the Tarhigang an elevation as great, and 

 perhaps (as is maintained in the Critical Researches on Philosophy 

 and Geography) 117 English feet greater than that reached by me 

 on the Chimborazo. Unfortunately, as I have shown more at large 

 in another place, these mountain journeys beyond the limits of per- 

 petual snow (however they may engage the curiosity of the public) 

 are of only very inconsiderable scientific use. 



( 2 ) p. 228. "The Condor, the giant of the Vulture tribe." 

 In my Recueil d' Observations de Zoologie et d' Anatomic com- 

 paree, vol. i. pp. 26-45, I have given the natural history of the 

 Condor, which, before my journey to the equatorial regions, had 

 been much misrepresented. (The name of the bird is properly 

 Cuntur, in the Inca language ; in Chili, in the Araucan, Manque ; 

 Sarcoramphus Condor of Dumeril.) I made and had engraved a 

 drawing of the head from the living bird, and of the size of nature. 

 Next to the Condor, the Lammergeier of Switzerland, and the Falco 

 destructor of Daudin, probably the Falco Harpyia of Linnaeus, are 

 the largest flying birds. 



The region which may be regarded as the ordinary haunt of the 

 Condor begins . at the height of Etna, and comprises atmospheric 

 strata from ten to eighteen thousand (about 10,600 to 19,000 

 English) feet above the level of the sea. Humming birds, which 

 make summer excursions as far as 61 N. latitude on the north- 

 west coast of America on the one hand, and the Tierra del Fuego 

 on the other, have been seen by Von Tschudi (Fauna Peruana, 

 Ornithol. p. 12), in Puna, as high as 13,700 (14,600 English) 

 feet. There is a pleasure in comparing the largest and the smallest 

 of the feathered inhabitants of the air. Of the Condors, the 

 largest individuals found in the chain of the Andes round Quito 

 measured, with extended wings, 14 (nearly 15 English) feet, and 

 the smallest 8 (8j English) feet. From these dimensions, and 

 from the visual angle at which the bird often appeared vertically 

 above our heads, we are enabled to infer the enormous height 

 to which the Condor soars when the sky is serene. A visual angle 

 of 4' ; for example, gives a perpendicular height above the eye 



