122 THE CONDOR. 



except towards the end, where it was white. The 

 head and neck were covered with a short down of a 

 brown colour, and the eyes were black, surrounded 

 with a circle of reddish broWn. The feathers of the 

 breast, neck, head and wings were of a brown colotir; 

 those on the back were darker. The legs were cov- 

 ered with brown feathers to the knee. The thigh- 

 bones were ten inches long, and those of the legs five 

 inches long. 



In the deserts of Pachomac, in South America, says 

 Dr. Goldsmith, where this bird is chiefly to be seen, 

 men seldom venture to travel. Those wild regions 

 are sufficient of themselves to inspire a secret horror ; 

 broken precipices, prowling panthers forests only 

 vocal with the hissing of serpents and mountains 

 rendered still more terrible by the Condor, the only 

 bird that ventures to make its residence in those deso- 

 lated regions. 



Surely, in the history of this terrible bird, we can 

 see the kind provision of a merciful Creator towards 

 man. It produces only two young in a year, while 

 some birds which are harmless arid useful, produce 

 thirty or forty young in the same time. The Condor 

 lives only in a certain part of South America, while 

 the birds that are most beneficial to man inhabit near- 

 ly every part of the earth., Now since all the birds 

 were made by the same hand, it is certain that there 

 was a design in permitting the most useful and harm*- 

 less to increase in abundance, while those that are de- 

 structive and ferocious, are always few in number, 

 and generally confined to certain parts of the earth. 

 Were the Condors as numerous as the pigeons, or the 



