BIRDS. f»5 



Condaminc has frequently seen them in several parts of the 

 mountains of Quito, and observed them hovering over a Sock 

 of sheep ; and he thinks they would, at a certain time, have at- 

 tempted to carry one off, had they not been scared away by the 



ralists had previously observed. Eiu-opeans, by a corrupt pron\inciation, 

 rbang-e the Peruvian u and t, as they change the syllable hiia into gita. 

 They say, for instance, the voli'ano of Tong-uragua, instead of Tungurn. 

 chua, and Andes, instead of And. IJaron de Humboldt thinks, that ciintur 

 is derived from cuntuni, which signifies to smell well, to spread an odour o. 

 fruit, meat, or other iUiraents. The baron observes, that, as there is nothing 

 more astonishing than the almost inconceivable sagacity with which the 

 condor distinguishes the odour of flejli from an immense distance, the ety- 

 mologist may be allowed to believe, that both cuntur and cuntuni come 

 from one and the same unknown root. He has chosen, however, to re tain 

 the popular name of condor. 



W. Dumeril has separated the condor from the genus vultur, and joined 

 it, and the papa, and the oricou, in a new genus, to which he has given the 

 aaxas of sarcoriimphus. This appears a very judicious distinction ; for the 

 crests, or fleshy ciirundes, which crown the beak, present a very distinctive 

 character. 



The young condor has no feathers. The body, for many months, is cover, 

 cd only with a very fine down, or a frizzled whitish hair, resembling that 

 of the young uJula?. This down disfigures the young bird so much, that it 

 appears almost as large in this state as when a<lult. The condor at two 

 years old has not the black plumage, but a fawn-coloured brown. The 

 female, up to this period, has not the white collar formed at the bottom of 

 the neck by feathers longer than the others, 'lliis collar the Spaniards 

 name golilta. From a want of proper attention to these changes produced 

 by age, many naturalists, and even the inhabitants of Peru themselves, «-ho 

 take little interest in ornithology, have announced two species of condors, 

 black and bro\vn {condor negroy condor par do). M. de Humboldt has met 

 persons, even in the city of Quito, who assured him, that the female of the 

 condor is distinguished from the male not only by the absence of the nasal 

 crest, but also by the want of the collar. Gmelin and the Abbe Molina 

 make the same assertion. It is, however, qtiite certain, that such is not the 

 fact. At Riobambo, in the environs of Chimborazo and Antisana, the hun. 

 ters are thoroughly acquainted with the influence produced by age on the 

 form and colour of the condor ; and for the most exact notions concerning 

 those varieties we are indebted to them. 



The beak of the condor is straight in the upper part, but extremely 

 crooked at the extremity. The lower jaw is much shorter than the upper. 

 The fore part of this enormous beak is wliite, the rest of a grayish bro^v^l, 

 end not black, as stated by Linnaeus. The head and neck are naked, and 

 covered wiih a hard, dry and wrinkled skin ; this same skin is reddish, but 

 furnished here and there with brown or blackish hairs, short and very stiff. 

 The cranium is singularly flat at the summit; as is the c;i,<e with all very 

 ferocious animals. 



The fleshy, or rather cartilaginous crest of the condor occupies the su:n. 

 mit of the brad, and one-fourth of the leur^tli of the b^ak. This crest is en. 



