VULTURE. 587 



evening, remains there all night, and returns again in the 

 morning." 



This condor, however, seems to have been much inferior in size 

 to those described by Acosta, Garcilasso, Demarchais, and some 

 other travellers, who affirm they have seen them eighteen feet from 

 tip to tip of the wing ; that their beaks are so strong and sharp, 

 that they can easily pierce the body of a cow ; that two of them 

 can attack and devour one entirely ; that they sometimes singly 

 oppose a man. The Indians, in like manner, who are more accus- 

 tomed to see them, declare, that they can carry off a deer or a 

 calf as easily as an eagle does a rabbit ; that their bodies are as 

 large as a sheep ; that their flesh is tough, and smtils like carrion : 

 their sight piercing, and their looks cruel. The Spaniards them- 

 selves seem afraid of their depredations ; and are not without in- 

 stances of their carrying off children of ten or twelve years old. 

 Their flight is terrible ; and, when they alight, one is stunned with 

 their noise. Condamine asserts, that he has often seen th< m in the 

 province of Quito, and on the borders of the Maragnon, swim- 

 ming over a flock of sheep, some of which they would have carried 

 off, had they not been scared by the shepherds. It is reported that 

 the Indians of these countries catch them, by working a piece of v 

 viscous clay into the form of a child, upou which they dart with 

 such rapidity, that their claws are entangled, so as to prevent their 

 escape. De Solis, alluding to this bird, says, that there were among 

 the curiosities of the Emperor of Mexico, birds of such extraordi- 

 nary fierceness and size, as to appear monsters; and that he had 

 been informed, that each of them could devour a sheep at a single 

 meal. 



After reading the history of these birds, the fiction of Virgil's 

 harpies appears less extravagant, or rather seems to sink into mere 

 narrative. Later writers, however, have greatly softened these 

 accounts, and assure us that the countenance of the condor is 

 not so terrible as the first travellers have painted it; and that 

 their nature appears equally mild with that of the eagle, or the 

 vulture. 



Mr. Ray, and almost all the naturalists after him, have classed 

 the condor in the genus of the vultures, on account of the naked- 

 ness of his head and neck. His dispositions, however, and habits, 

 seem as strongly to plead his affinity to the eagles : he is rapid, 

 fierce, and courageous, and, like them, lives by the chace. His 



