418 AVES— VULTURE. 



In tenacity of life, the condor exceeds almost every other bird. M. Hum- 

 boldt relates that during his stay at Riobamba, he was present at some 

 experiments which were made on one by the Indians who had taken it 

 alive. They first strangled it with a lasso and hanged it on a tree, pulling 

 it forcibly by the feet for several minutes ; but scal-cely was the lasso re- 

 moved, when the bird arose and walked about as though nothing had 

 occurred to affect it. It was then shot with three balls, discharged from a 

 pistol, at less than four paces, all of which entered its body, and wounded 

 it in the neck, chest, and abdomen ; it still, however, kept its legs. Another 

 ball struck its thigh, and it fell to the* ground. This was preserved by 

 M. Bonpland, for a considerable time, as a memorial of the circumstance. 

 Ulloa had previously asserted, that in the colder parts of Peru, the skin 

 of the condor was so closely covered with feathers, that eight or ten balls 

 might be heard to strike it without penetrating its body. M. Humboldt's 

 bird did not die of its wounds until after an interval of half an hour. 



The stories which have long been current, on the authority of credulous 

 travellers, imputing to the condor a propensity to carry off young children, 

 and even to attack men and women, appear to have originated solely in 

 that common feeling which delights in regarding mere possibilities in the 

 light of positive facts. M. Humboldt declares that he never heard of an 

 instance in which a child was carried off; although the children of the 

 Indians Avho collect the snow on the mountains for sale, are constantly left 

 sleeping in the open air in the midst of these birds, and offer, of course, a 

 temptation which would be irresistible if not counteracted by some peculiar 

 instinct. With respect to the risk incurred by men, while he confesses that 

 two of these birds would be dangerous enemies for a single man to encoun- 

 ter, he states that he has frequently approached them within ten or twelve 

 feet, as they sat three or four together perched upon the rocks, and that 

 they showed no disposition to attack him. The Indians of Quito, moreover, 

 unanimously assured him that men have nothing to apprehend from the 

 condors. 



THE SOCIABLE VULTURE^ 



Is a bird of extreme rarity. It was first described by Le Vaillant, in his 

 "Travels in the Interior of Africa," under the name of oricou; fancifully 

 derived from the folding of the skin around its ears, and along its neck. A 

 more detailed account of it was afterwards furnished by the same distin- 

 guished ornithologist, in his Oiseaux d'Afrique, where a full gro^vn male is 

 very accurately figured. We do not find that it has since been observed by 



1 Vultur auricularis, Daud. 



