168 CLASS AVES. 



It is astonishing, as this most judicious observer well remarks^ 

 that one of the largest of terrestrial birds and animals inhabit- 

 ing countries which Europeans have been accustomed to visit 

 for more than three centuries, should have so long remained so 

 imperfectly known. The descriptions even of the most modern 

 naturalists and travellers concerning this bird, are replete with 

 contradiction, error, and falsehood. By some, the size and fero- 

 city of the condor have been immeasurably exaggerated ; others 

 have confounded it with approximating species, or assumed the 

 differences observed in the bird from infancy to age, as the 

 diagnostic characteristics of sex. Baron Cuvier, in speaking 

 of the form of the condor, after a careful investigation of all 

 that has been written on the subject before Humboldt, ex- 

 presses himself thus : " Some authors attribute to the condor 

 a brown plumage, and a head clothed with down ; others, a 

 fleshy crest on the forehead, and a black and white plumage. 

 It has not yet been described with any precision." Of the 

 two drawings given by Dr. Shaw, the second alone bears the 

 least resemblance to the great vulture of the Andes. " But 

 the head," says Baron de Humboldt, " is without character. 

 It more resembles that of a cock, than the head of the Peru- 

 vian condor; Buffon has not even risked an engraving of this 

 bird. The one added to the edition of his works, at Deux Fonts, 

 is below all criticism." 



The Baron de Humboldt having resided for seventeen months 

 in the native mountains of the condor, having had occasion 

 constantly to see it in his frequent excursions beyond the limits 

 of perpetual snow, has been enabled to render the most essen- 

 tial service to zoology, by publishing a detailed description of 

 this animal, and the drawings which he sketched of it on the 

 spot. 



The name of condor is derived from the Qquichua language, 

 the general language of the ancient Incas. It should be written 

 vuntur, as other naturalists hud previously observed. Euro- 

 peans, by a corrupt pronunciation, change the Peruvian u and i^ 



