170 CLASS AVES. 



boldt has met persons, even in the city of Quito, who assured 

 him, that the female of the condor is distinguished from the 

 male not only by the absence of the nasal crest, but also by the 

 want of the collar. Gmelin and the Abbe Molina make the 

 same assertion. It is, however, quite certain, that such is not 

 the fact. At Riobaraba, in the environs of Chimborazo and 

 Antisana, the hunters are thoroughly acquainted with the in- 

 fluence produced by age on the form and colour of the condor; 

 and for the most exact notions concerning those varieties we 

 are indebted to them. 



The vulture of the Andes is much more remarkable for his 

 audacity, the enormous strength of his beak, his wings, and 

 his talons, than for his dimensions from point to point of the 

 wings. A few years previously to his traversing the chain of the 

 Andes, M.de Hvimboldt lived in the country of Sal tzbourg ; 

 and has seen at Berchtesgaden, Leemmer-geyers (V. Barbatus) 

 fully as large as any condor. 



The beak of the condor is straight in the upper part, 

 but extremely crooked at the extremity. The lower jaw 

 is much shorter than the upper. The fore part of this enor- 

 mous beak is white, the rest of a grayish brown, and not 

 black, as stated by Linnaeus. The head and neck are 

 naked, and covered with a hard, dry, and wrinkled skin ; 

 this same skin is reddish, but furnished here and there 

 with brown or blackish hairs, short and very stiff. The cra- 

 nium is singularly flat at the summit; as is the case with 

 all very ferocious animals. Here should be the organ of 

 benevolence according to Dr. Gall ; but it is totally wanting in 

 the condor. M. de Humboldt, in alluding to the bold but in- 

 genious system of this philosopher, of which he confesses he 

 was ignorant during his residence in Peru, regrets having lost 

 the cranium of the condor, and having neglected to observe 

 whether it possessed the longitudinal protuberance, which is 

 found in the middle of the sagittal suture in the eagle and the 

 chamois. This, according to the craniological system, is the 



