CONDOR. 271 



As the condor is confined to the comparatively narrow chain of the Andes, but 

 ranges from the Strait of Magelhaen to eight or ten degrees north of the equator, its 

 nesting-time would be expected to vary with the latitude, and probably the eggs are 

 laid between November and March. The spot selected for this purpose is commonly 

 an inaccessible ledge or shelf on some precipice in the heart of the Cordilleras. Two 

 white, unspotted eggs, three and one half to four inches long, are laid on the bare 

 rock, and perhaps a few sticks gathered loosely about them. It is at least seven 

 weeks before they hatch, and the young birds are not able to fly until more than 

 a year old, and even then they hunt and roost with the parent birds for a year or 

 two longer. Thus their development is slower than that of any other known species 

 of bird. 



When first hatched, the young condor is covered with rather scanty, whitish 

 down, which soon deepens in color and increases in length and thickness, but is not 

 replaced by the true feathers until the bird is nearly as large as its parents. The 

 adult male is glossy black, with a broad white bar across each wing, and a collar or 

 ruff of snow-white down about the neck, above which the neck is unfeathered and 

 covered with wrinkled, dull red skin. The forehead has a fleshy or cartilaginous 

 comb or caruncle, the throat is wattled, and there is a large, pendulous wattle on 

 the upper part of the breast. The terminal part of the bill is ivory white, the rest 

 dark. The adult female lacks the comb, the wattles are smaller or wanting, there 

 is less white on the wings, and the dark colors are duller than in the male. 



Before reaching this condition the young birds wear, for one or more years, a 

 pretty uniformly brown dress, and in this stage are called by the natives of the Peru- 

 vian Andes ' condor pardo,' or brown condor. The comb of the male usually makes 

 its appearance before the downy collar, which latter is not developed before the 

 second year, and is not at first white. 



Whatever may be the case under natural conditions, in confinement this species 

 does not acquire its full plumage for several years, as shown by a specimen received 

 at the London Zoological Gardens in 1877, which "was in nearly the same uniform 

 brown plumage " six years later, and was therefore considered by Mr. Sharpe to be an 

 undcscribed species, which he named Sarcorhamphus cequatorialis. A specimen in 

 the Central Park menagerie at New York, however, which at the age of six years was 

 precisely like this 'new' species, subsequently acquired the full plumage of the true 

 condor, of which therefore probably but one species should be recognized. Humboldt 

 says that the name condor is from a word in the language of the Incas, signifying to 

 smell, and adds : " There is nothing more astonishing than the almost inconceivable 

 sagacity with which the condor distinguishes the odor of flesh from an immense 

 distance." This belief in the extraordinary power of smell possessed by carrion- 

 vultures is largely an inherited or traditional one, and was long ago shown to be 

 without foundation. That they have some power of smell is well known, and Owen 

 has even shown that in the turkey-buzzard the olfactory nerves are highly developed. 

 Recognizing this fact in the anatomy of the bird, there is yet very little evidence that 

 the power is ever used in the detection of food. 



Audubon's careful experiments on the black-vulture, Cathartes atratus, make it 

 certain that, in that species, sight, principally, if not solely, guides the bird to its prey. 

 The perfectly dry, stuffed skin of a common deer, placed in the attitude of death, 

 attracted a vulture within a few moments, though there was nothing eatable about it ; 

 after satisfying itself of which, by walking over and tugging at it, the bird circled 



