76 BIRDS OF PREY 



oftener. Around the cities of the South it is a great domestic 

 economist and labor-saver. 



In Bombay, India, the Parsees expose their dead in two 

 great, shallow, open-topped towers, called the Towers of 

 Silence, and the vultures regularly devour them — all except 

 the bones, which fall down into a central pit. 



The California Vulture, or California "Condor,"^ 

 is, among naturalists, the most celebrated bird of this Family, 

 partly because it is our largest bird of prey, and also because 

 of its great rarity. Even in captivity, the adult bird is very 

 large and imposing. On the wing, in the wild, rocky fast- 

 nesses of its native mountains, those who have seen it there 

 say it is a grand object, and it is not to be wondered at 

 that its pursuit is quite as exciting as the chase of the big- 

 horn. 



Mrs. Florence Merriam Bailey gives the following as the 

 dimensions of this bird: length, 44 to 55 inches; wing-spread, 

 83^2 to nearly 11 feet; weight, 20 to 25 pounds. 



This great Vulture breeds in the most inaccessible crags 

 it can find, but of course collectors find it, and I feel that its 

 existence hangs on a very slender thread. This is due to its 

 alarmingly small range, the insignificant number of individuals 

 now living, the openness of the species to attack, and the 

 danger of its extinction by poison. Originally this remarkable 

 bird — the largest North American bird of prey — ranged as far 

 northward as the Columbia River, and southward for an un- 

 known distance. Now its range is reduced to seven counties 

 in southern California. 



1 Gym'no-gyps calif ornianus. 



