THE CONDOR. 69 



CHILE. 



noose them. They are such heavy sleepers, as I have myself 

 witnessed, that this is not a difficult task. At Valparaiso I 

 have seen a living condor sold for sixpence, but the common 

 price is eight or ten shillings. In a garden, at the same place, 

 between twenty and thirty were kept alive. 



When an animal is killed in the country, it is well known 

 that the condors, like other carrion-vultures, soon learn of it,, 

 and congregate in a manner not yet explained. In most 

 cases, too, the birds have discovered their prey and picked 

 the skeleton clean before the flesh is in the least degree 

 tainted. Remembering the experiments of Mr. Audubon on 

 the little smelling powers of carrion -hawks, I tried, in the 

 above-mentioned garden, the following experiment : the con- 

 dors were tied, each by a rope, in a long row at the bottom 

 of a wall, and having folded up a piece of meat in white pa- 

 per, I walked backward and forward, carrying it in my hand 

 at the distance of about three yards from them, but no notice 

 whatever was taken. I then threw it on the ground, within 

 one yard of an old male bird ; he looked at it for a moment 

 with attention, but then regarded it no more. With a stick 

 I pushed it closer and closer, until at last he touched it with 

 his beak; the paper was then instantly torn off with fury, 

 and at the same moment every bird in the long row began 

 struggling and flapping its wings. Under the same circum- 

 stances it would have been quite impossible to have deceived 

 a dog. 



Often, when lying down to rest on the open plains, on 

 looking upward I have seen carrion -hawks sailing through 

 the air at a great height. Where the country is level, I do 



