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 scarcely 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 cra s.ous 
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 who 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 ais 
“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 grown male is 
very accurately figured. We do not find that it has since been observed by 
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1 Vultur auricularis, Daun. 
