THE CONDOR. 121 



large and strong as to seize an ox with its talons, and to 

 lift it into the air, whence it lets it fall to the ground, in 

 order to kill it and prey upon the carcass. But this 

 astonishment must, in a great measure, subside when the 

 dimensions of the bird are taken into consideration, and 

 which, incredible as they may appear, I now insert from 

 a note taken by my own hand. When the wings are 

 spread they measure sixteen spaces, forty feet in extent 

 from point to point. The feathers are eight spaces, 

 twenty feet in length, and the quill part, two palms, 

 eight feet in circumference. It is said to have strength 

 enough to carry off a living rhinoceros." * 



Humboldt dissipated these extravagances; though he 

 confesses that it appeared to himself of colossal size, and 

 it was only the actual admeasurement of a dead specimen 

 that corrected the optical illusion. He met with no ex- 

 ample that exceeded nine feet, and he was assured by 

 many of the inhabitants of Quito that they had never 

 shot any that exceeded eleven. This estimate, however, 

 appears to be below the reality ; for Tschudi, a most care- 

 ful and reliable authority, and an accomplished zoologist, 

 assigns to this bird in one place an expanse of "from 

 twelve to thirteen feet/' while in another he says : " I 

 measured a very large male condor, and the width from 

 the tip of one wing to the tip of the other was fourteen 

 English feet and two inches, an enormous expanse of 

 wing, not equalled by any other bird except the white 

 albatross." -\- So far from his " trussing a rhinoceros," or 



* Temple's Travels in Pern. f Travels in Peru. 



