THE CONDOR. 63 



plead for its place among the former ; the baldness of its head and 

 neck might be thought to degrade it among the latter. In this uncer 

 tainty, it will be enough to describe the bird, by the lights we have, 

 and leave future historians to settle its rank in the feathered creation. 

 Indeed, if size and strength, combined with rapidity of flight and rapa 

 city, deserve pre-eminence, no bird can be put in competition with it. 



The Condor possesses, in a higher degree than the eagle, all the 

 qualities that render it formidable, not only to the feathered kind, but 

 to beasts, and even to man himself. Acosta, Garcilasso, and Desmar 

 chais, assert, that it is eighteen feet across, the wings extended. The 

 oeak is so strong as to pierce the body of a cow ; and two of them 

 are able to devour it. They do not even abstain from man himself: 

 but fortunately there are but few of the species ; for if they had been 

 plenty, every order of animals must have carried on an unsuccessful 

 war against them. The Indians assert, that they will carry off a deer, 

 or a young calf, in their talons, as eagles would a hare or a rabbit ; 

 that their sight is piercing, and their air terrible ; that they seldom 

 frequent the forests, as they require a large space for the display 

 of their wings ; but that they are found on the sea-shore, and the 

 banks of rivers, whither they descend from the heights of the moun- 

 tains. By later accounts we learn, that they come down to the sea 

 shore only at certain seasons, when their prey happens to fail them 

 upon land ; that they then feed upon dead fish, and such other nutri- 

 cious substances as the sea throws upon the shore. We are assured, 

 however, that their countenance is not so terrible as the old writers 

 have represented it ; but that they appear of a milder nature than 

 either the eagle or the vulture. 



Condamine has frequently seen them in several parts of the moun 

 tains of Quito, and observed them hovering over a flock of sheep, and 

 he thinks they would, at a certain time, have attempted to carry one 

 off, had they not been scared away by the shepherds. Labat acquaints 

 us, that those who have seen this animal, declare that the body is as 

 large as that of a sheep, and that the flesh is tough, and as disagree- 

 able as carrion. The Spaniards themselves seem to dread its depre- 

 dations ; and there have been many instances of its carrying off their 

 children. 



Mr. Strong, the master of a ship, as he was sailing along the coasts 

 of Chili, in the thirty-third degree of south latitude, observed a bird 

 sitting upon a high cliff near the shore, which some of the ship's com 

 pany shot with a leaden bullet and killed. They were greatly sur- 

 prised when they beheld its magnitude ; for when the wings were ex- 

 tended, they measured thirteen feet from one tip to the other One 

 of the quills was two feet four inches long : and the barrel, or hollow 

 part, was six inches and three quarters, and an inch and a half in cir 

 cumference. 



We have a still more circumstantial account of this amazing bird, 

 by P. Feuillee, the only traveller who has accurately described it : 

 " In the valley of lllo in Peru, I discovered a condor perched on ;i 

 high rock before me : I approached within gun-shot and fired ; but as 

 my piece was only charged with swan-shot, the lead was not able suf- 

 ficiently to oierce the bird's feathers. I perceived, however, by iw 



