174 CLASS AVES. 



from tip to tip, exceeded nine feet French measure. Many 

 persons in Quito and the Andes, Avorthy of the highest credit, 

 assured M. de Humboldt, that they never killed any that ex- 

 ceeded eleven feet in the envergure. Even on a careful exa- 

 mination of the narratives of travellers, who visited these regions 

 previously to M. de Humboldt, it will appear that, among the 

 naturalists who have measured the vulture of the Andes, there 

 are but few who assign to it a very extraordinary size. Father 

 Feuillee, whose exactness in matters of natural history is quite 

 exemplary, killed in Peru, in the valley of Ylo, to the south of 

 Arequipa, a condor whose envergure was only eleven feet fovir 

 inches. The measurement which he gives of the different parts of 

 the bird perfectly accords with the dimensions given by M. de 

 Humboldt, with the exception of the length of the beak. The 

 condor of Feuillee appears to have been a female, for he says 

 nothing concerning the crest. The male condor measured by 

 Fresier had an envergure of only nine feet. From his own 

 observations in Peru and Quito, M. de Humboldt thinks dif- 

 ferently from Buffon, that the condors measured by Feuillee 

 and Fresier were not young ones. He also doubts very much 

 whether any condor ever surpassed fourteen feet in the enver- 

 gure- Dr. Strong, quoted in the synopsis of Ray, killed in 

 Chili, near the island of Mocha, a condor, whose extended 

 wings measured twelve feet two inches. The individual de- 

 scribed by Dr. Shaw, from the Leverian Museum, had an 

 envergure of fourteen feet English. The Abbe Molina himself 

 seems to regard this as the maximum of the size of the condor. 

 On the other hand, old travellers, less interested in the progress 

 of natural history, have given the most exaggerated dimensions. 

 Pere Abbeville, for instance, assures us that the condor is twice 

 the size of the most colossal eagle. Demarchais tells us, that 

 its extended wings measure eighteen feet ; that the enormous 

 size of its wings prevent it from entering the forests ; that it 

 attacks a man, and can carry off a deer. Such exaggerations 

 are not to be wondered at in naturalists who, instead of ob- 



