The California Condor 



So far we have assumed, rather than stated, that the California Con- 

 dor is a rare bird, and that an acquaintance with it at first hand is a cov- 

 eted privilege. It is so rare a bird that it is doubtful if there are in exist- 

 ence one hundred representatives of the species at the present time 

 (Sept., 192 1), and it would not be very surprising if there should prove to 

 be not above forty. The center of "abundance" is, as it probably always 

 has been, the southwestern coastal ranges of California. Birds were also, 

 until recently, found in the San Gabriel-San Bernardino ranges and 

 throughout the entire southern system, well down into Lower California. 

 The species doubtless still persists in the San Pedro Martir Mountains of 



Lower California, but in all probability it has 

 within the past two decades died out of the 

 region intervening between Ventura County 

 or extreme northern Los Angeles County 

 and the Mexican line. Yet California was 

 once a paradise for Vultures; and a fauna 

 which boasted camels and elephants and 

 saber-toothed tigers supported not only Vul- 

 tures and Condors in profusion, but a super- 

 Condor, one Teratornis merriami, which had 

 a stretch of wings of perhaps eighteen feet, 

 and which made our hero look like a bantam. 

 These things we know — and enough more to 

 fill an avian Arabian Nights — from the won- 

 derful Brea beds, or swamp of asphaltic ooze, 

 near Los Angeles. 



Within historic times the California Con- 

 dor ranged as far as the lower stretches of the 

 Columbia River, and J. K. Townsend, sta- 

 tioned in the Thirties at Fort Vancouver, 

 Washington, saw them there, apparently at 

 different seasons, feasting upon the stranded 

 salmon. Drs. Newberry and Cooper, fol- 

 lowing in the Fifties, failed to find them any- 

 where north of the California line, and com- 

 mented upon their absence. Franklin J. 

 Smith records 1 specimens killed near Eureka, 

 one in the fall of 1889 or 1890, and the other 

 taken 60 miles east of Eureka, in the fall of 

 1892. Finley records 2 the bird in southern 

 Oregon as late as 1904, on the authority of 



Taken in Los Angeles County 

 Photo by Finley and Bohlman 



PORTRAIT OF "GENERAL" 



'Condor, Sept. 1016, p. 205. 



2 Condor, Vol. X-, Jan. 1908, p. 10. 



1732 



