CHAP. X. FLIGHTS OF THE IMAGINATION. 201 



Aspects of Nature, vol. 2, p. 4, Humboldt says this bird often 

 soared over liis head ^^ above all the summits of the Andes ^^; and 

 at p. 41 of the same volume he observes^ ^'^ It is a remarkable 

 physiological phenomenon, that the same bird, which can fly in 

 circles for hours in regions of the atmosphere so rarefied, should 

 sometimes suddenly descend, as on the western declivity of the 

 Volcano of Pichincha, to the sea-shore, thus passing rapidly 

 through all gradations of climate/^ Mr. James Orton, late Pro- 

 fessor of Natural History in Vassar College, improves upon this, 

 and states that the Condor '^ can dart in an instant from, the dome 

 of Chimborazo to the sultry coast of the Pacific. ^^ The shores of 

 that Ocean are nowhere less than one hundred and twenty miles 

 from the mountain ; and if my schoolboy readers will multiply 

 sixty by sixty, and then by one hundred and twenty, they will 

 find the rate (in miles) per hour, at which the Condor can fly, 

 according to Professor Orton.* They will probably wonder at 

 the keenness of eyesight which enabled him to trace this light- 

 ning rapidity ; and will be disposed to enquire how he was 

 advised of the arrival on the shores of that sultry coast of 

 the particular Condor which started from the frigid dome. As 

 these flights of the imagination may lead some to suppose that 

 the Condor has a very great range in altitude on the Equator ; 

 that it habitually soars at extraordinary elevations ; and that it 

 flies with immense rapidity, I venture to give some of our own 

 observations. 



When we were upon Chimborazo, I was, at first, a little appre- 



Between Antisanilla and Pinantura I also captured a species of Opisogonia ; and, 

 in the lower part of the Chillo basin, an Agrotis, Eupyra regalis, Her, Schf. (the 

 most handsome moth I saw in the interior of Ecuador), Sangala necyria, Feld. & R., 

 and Scotosia dubiferata, Walk. 



' Professor Orton, along with four others, travelled from Guayaquil to Quito in 

 1867, and thence down the Amazons to Para ; and subsequently wrote a book 

 entitled The Andes and the Amazo7i. This journey *' was made under the auspices 

 of the Smithsonian Institution." The quotation is from p. 106 of the English 

 edition, published by S. Low, Son and Marston, 1870. 



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