NORTH AMEItH!A.\ 



193 



and the habits of both species are alike, often feeding together on the same carcass. 

 Like the Turkey Vulture its flight is easy and graceful, sailing majestically with al- 

 most motionless wings, in wide circles at great heights, over a large space of terri- 

 tory, in search of food. The weight of this bird varies from twenty to twenty-five 

 pounds; extent of wing from eight and a half to eleven feet. Previous to the egg 

 recorded by Mr. H. R. Taylor it is doubtful that a specimen had been taken in twelve 

 years. With the discovery of this egg and the nesting place of this species we have, 

 with further accessions in an oological way, a reasonably full knowledge of the 

 bird's nidification.* Mr. Taylor says: "There are probably but three or four eggs 



324 CALIFORNIA CONDOR CHICK (From The Nidologist). 



of the California Condor in existence, and one of these I have the honor to claim as 

 my property, having purchased it a month ago at a good round figure from the 

 collector, who took it in 1889, and had since been keeping it as a curiosity (!) The 

 discovery of this egg gives positive information as to the nesting time, heretofore 

 unknown, and is in every way a considerable bit of ornithological news. In ap- 

 pearance the egg is almost a facsimile of the one figured by Capt. [the late Maj.J 

 Bendire, although I would describe the color as ashy-green. As an unspotted egg 

 is bound to appear flat in a lithograph (see figure of egg in 'Life Histories') I have 

 not attempted to illustrate this one. My egg was taken in May, 1889, in the Santa 

 Lucia Mountains, San Luis Obispo county, Cal., at an altitude of 3,480 feet. The 

 egg was deposited in a large cave in the side of a perpendicular bluff, which the 

 collector entered by means of a long rope from above. The bird was on the nest, 

 which was in a low place in the rock, and was, the collector says, 'lined with 



* For an exhaustive treatise on the habits of the California Condor see Taylor's 

 article in The Nidologist for February, 1895, pp. 74-79: also March, 1895, concerning the par- 

 ticulars of the taking of the eggr. 



14 



