The California Condor 



and polished by all that human ingenuity may contrive, — Santa 



Barbara, the first and the last, where stout-hearted Cabrillo 



planted the earliest of European footsteps upon Californian shores, 



and where — surely, where the last of human footsteps will linger, 



dallying, when the final summons calls the race to its eternal home. 



The heart of California is here. Aye, and in a dozen places 



more; for the heart of California is very large, and it is indivisible. 



But for me the heart of California lies in the Condor country. 



And for me the heart of mystery, of wonder, and of desire lies 



with the California Condor, that majestic and almost legendary 



figure, which still haunts the fastnesses of our lessening 



erness. 



So many of our California writers upon 

 birds, contributors to "The Condor" 

 magazine, and the like, have been at 

 pains to conduct their readers 

 through enchanted mazes of ap- 

 proach, that for once I shall try to 

 follow their example. It is nat- 

 ural that bankers off on vaca- 

 tions, and clerks on a hard-earned 

 holiday, should invest every cir- 

 cumstance of their outing with 

 the same glamor of interest which 

 attaches to the winning of some 

 oological trophy, or capture of a rara 

 avis which really marked the jour- 

 ney's end. Because of this — shall we 

 say beatific fallacy? — we have reams 

 of scenic descriptions and half-reams 

 of camp-fire conversations to 

 quires of bird descriptions and 

 half-sheets of ornithological char- 

 acter study. It is ever the way of 

 the human race to be most concerned with itself and its own reactions. 

 We acquiesce. 



It was with a happy heart, then, that the writer accepted, early in 

 April, 191 1, an invitation to visit a Condor's eyrie hidden in the heart of 

 eastern San Luis Obispo County. My guides were interested to prove 

 that Condors, or at least a Condor, laid a white or creamy white egg, 

 instead of the stereotyped pale bluish green of scientific repute. Our 

 course lay over the half-timbered foothills which compose one of the inner 



Taken in Los Angeles County Photo by H. T. Bohlman and W. L. Finley 

 CALIFORNIA CONDORS 



IJ20 



