LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



5 



But return we to our condor. It affords preg- 

 nant evidence of the care and attention exerted by 

 the authorities and keepers of the animals con- 

 fined in the garden of the Zoological Society of 

 London in the Regent's Park, when we find that 

 so many of them have not only shown a disposi- 

 tion to breed in their captivity, but that not a few 

 have actually reared healthy offspring under all 

 the disadvantages which a life so different from 

 that intended by Nature must, under any circum- 

 stances, produce. Some of these instances, if our 

 notes find favor in your eye, dear reader, will be 

 hereafter given. At present, we beg attention to 

 one where, with every wish to continue the spe- 

 cies, the parents seemed to give up incubation as 

 hopeless. 



At the time the present note was taken the 

 female condor in the Regent's Park had laid seven 

 eggs. The first was laid on the 4th of March, 



1844 ; the second on the 29th of April of the 

 same year ; the third on the 28th of February, 



1845 ; the fourth on the 24th of April in that 

 year ; the fifth on the 8th of February, 1846 ; the 

 sixth on the 3rd of April, 1846 ; and the seventh 

 on the 7th of May, 1847. 



On one occasion, I saw the condors with a 

 newly-laid white egg, some three or four inches 

 long, lying on the naked floor of their prison. 

 There was no appearance of a nest of any kind, 

 and there was something melancholy and yet 

 ludicrous in the hopeless expression with which 

 both the parents looked down at it. They 

 regarded the egg and then each other, as if they 

 would have said, if they could, " What are we to 

 do with it now we have got it?" And the mute 

 mutual answer of their forlorn eyes and dejected 

 heads was, evidently, " Nothing." 



Well, at last, it was proposed that, as soon as 

 another egg was laid, it should be placed under a 

 hen. Accordingly, on the 7th of May, at half- 

 past seven o'clock, A. M., (I must be pardoned for 

 being somewhat particular on such an occasion,) 

 the newly -laid egg was put under a good motherly 

 looking nurse of the Dorking breed, and, as the 

 colors of hens as well as of horses are worthy 

 of note, let it be remembered that her color was 

 white, inclining to buff. 



The place of incubation was a cage elevated 

 some distance above the floor in one of the 

 aviaries. The hen sat very close. Day after 

 day, week after week, passed away ; still the ex- 

 cellent nurse continued to sit. Day after day, 

 week after week, again rolled on, and the usual 

 period at which the anxious feathered mother 

 beholds her natural offspring was left far behind. 

 Still the good nurse sat on, till at last after an 

 incubation of fifty-four days, the young condor, on 

 the 30th of June, 1846, about six o'clock in the 

 morning, began to break the wall of its procreant 

 prison. The process of hatching was very slow. 

 The young bird was not extricated from the egg 

 until after twenty-seven hours, nor was it then 

 released on the morning of the 1st of July 



without the assistance of the keeper, who found 

 it necessary to remove the shell, as the membrane 

 had got dry round the nestling. Thus came into 

 this best of all possible worlds the first condor 

 hatched in England. It had an odd appearance, 

 and seemed to wonder how it had got here. The 

 head appeared to be misshapen, for on the top of it 

 was what looked like an amorphous bladder of water 

 contained between the external skin and the skull. 

 This gradually disappeared, and when I first saw 

 it, on the same first of July, about four o'clock 

 in the afternoon, the head was properly shaped. 

 It was naked, and of a dark lead color ; and such 

 was the hue of the just visible comb (showing 

 that it was a male) and of the naked feet. With 

 these exceptions the young bird was covered with 

 a dirty white down, and looked healthy and vigor- 

 ous. On the evening of the day on which it was 

 hatched it ate part of the liver of a young rabbit. 



The young condor was fed five times each day 

 with the fleshy parts of young rabbits ; at each 

 feed a piece about the size of a walnut was given, 

 and it was very fond of the liver. For the first 

 ten days it was fed, and after that time it pecked 

 the food from the hand of the keeper. It took, 

 no water, nor was any forced on it. 



I find, also, the following in my note-book;: 



July 18. The young condor continues tolhrive 

 apace, and the good hen that hatched- the egg 

 from which this portentous chick sprung still re- 

 mains in the elevated cage, and seems very much 

 attached to her charge. When feeding for 

 which purpose she quits the nestling only twice 

 a day, hurrying back as if anxious to resume her 

 duty she is fussy and fidgety (if there be such 

 words) till her hasty meals are ended. The 

 young condor's down is now changed to a more 

 gray hue, and the germs of the true feathers begin 

 to show themselves. The head and neck have 

 become blacker, and the budding excrescence of 

 the comb advances. The upper mandible of the 

 bill is slightly movable. The lower extremities 

 are become darker and very stout, but as yet too 

 weak to support the bird's weight. 



May not this local, but no doubt natural weak- 

 ness, point to the solution of the continued close 

 attention of the hen! Her duty with her own 

 eggs is to hatch chickens that run very soon after 

 they have left the egg-shell, but till they are 

 strong enough to be able to trust to their lower 

 extremities she keeps them close, " hiving them," 

 as the old wives say, carefully, till these lower 

 extremities, which are, in the nestlings of the 

 gallinaceous tribe, first well developed, shall be 

 sufficiently strong to carry them in search of food 

 and out of danger. The hen, in this instance, 

 finds that her Garagantua of a chick cannot walk, 

 and therefore goes on cherishing it and sitting' 

 close over it. I saw it fed about three o'clock in 

 the afternoon upon part of a young rabbit, nearly 

 the whole of which it had consumed in the course 

 of yesterday and to-day. When brought out it 

 shivered its callow wings and opened its mouth 



