THE CONDOR 389 



' which has previously been scarified with lances. The bellowing 

 I of the poor animal, lacerated by the famished vulture, and vainly 



* endeavouring to cast off its tormentor, amuses what may well be 

 called the " swinish multitude." 



In the province of Huarochirin there is a large natural 

 funnel-shaped excavation, about sixty feet deep, with a diameter 



• of about eighty feet at the top. A dead mule is placed on the brink 

 I of the precipice. The tugging of the condors at the dead carcase 

 ; causes it to fall into the hole; they follow it wdth greedy haste, 



and having gorged themselves with food, are unable again to rise 

 from the narrow bottom of the funnel. Tschudi saw the Indians 

 kill at once, with sticks, twenty-eight of the birds which had been 

 thus entrapped. In a somewhat similar manner condors are 

 caught in Peru, Bolivia, and Chili, as far as their range extends, 

 and are frequently brought to Valparaiso and Callao, where they 

 are sold for a few dollars to the foreign ships, and thence con- 

 veyed to Europe. 



The condor, though a very large bird, about four feet long, 

 and measuring at least three yards from tip to tip of his ex- 

 tended wings, is far from attaining the dimensions assigned to 

 him by the earlier writers and naturalists, who, emulating Sindbad 

 the Sailor, in his account of the roc, described him as a giant 

 whose bulk darkened the air. Fortunately the works of nature 

 do not require the exaggerations of fiction to be rendered in- 

 teresting, and the marvels of organic nature which scientific in- 

 quiries reveal are far more wonderful than any which romancers 

 may invent. 



The condor reminds us of the Albatross. As the former sweeps 

 lin majestic circles high above the Andes, the latter soars grace- 

 fully over the ocean, " and without ever touching the water with 

 his wings, rises with the rising billow and falls with the falling 

 wave.'' * If the wonderful power of wing which bears the condor, 

 ften within the space of a few hours, from the sea-shore into 

 the highest regions of the air, and the strength of breast which 

 is able to support such changes of atmospheric pressure, may 

 well raise our wonder, the indomitable pinions of the albatross 

 are no less admirable. Both are unable to take wing from a 

 narrow space, and both finally, so lordly in their movements, 



* " The Sea and its Living Wonders," p. 139. 



