44 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



tivity, the Condor can support forty days' hanger; when 

 free, his voracity is excessive, and, vulture-like, is directed 

 by preference to dead flesh. 



The mode of capture of Condors in Peru by means of pali- 

 sades, as described by me, is practised with equal success in 

 Chili. When the bird has gorged himself with flesh, he cannot 

 rise into the air without first running for some little distance 

 with his wings half expanded. A dead ox, in which decom- 

 position is beginning to take place, is strongly fenced round, 

 leaving within the fence only a small space, in which the 

 Condors attracted by the prey are crowded together. "When 

 they have gorged themselves with food, the palisades not 

 permitting them to obtain a start by running, they become, 

 as remarked above, unable to rise, and are either killed with 

 clubs by the country people, or taken alive by the lasso. 

 On the first declaration of the political independence of 

 Chili, the Condor appeared on the coinage as the symbol of 

 strength. (Claudio Gay, Historia fisica y politica de Chile, 

 publicada bajo los auspicios del Supremo Gobierno ; Zoologia, 

 pp. 194-198.) 



Tar more useful than the Condor in the great economy of 

 Nature, in the removal of putrefying animal substances and 

 in thus purifying the air in the neighbourhood of human 

 habitations, are the different species of Gallinazos, of which 

 the number of individuals is much greater. In tropical 

 America I have sometimes seen as many as 70 or 80 assem- 

 bled at once round a dead animal; and I am able, as an 

 eye-witness, to confirm the fact long since stated, but which 

 has recently been doubted by ornithologists, of the whole 



