THE CONDOR. HI 



THE CONDOR. 



IN THE GARDENS OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The Condor is the largest of the feathered tribe which has the faculty of flying. The mountains of 

 Peru are its general residence, although it is to be found in other parts both of the old and new conti- 

 nents. It has hitherto been classed by naturalists amongst the vultures, although in many of its habits 

 it differs considerably from those disgusting birds. Like them, however, it inhabits desert and inacces- 

 sible places, and mountains of the highest altitude, from which it descends but rarely into the plains ; 

 but, unlike the vulture, it never deigns to feed on carrion, but always on animals, which have been 

 caught by it in the chase. The condor possesses, even in a higher degree than the eagle, all the quali- 

 ties, all the endowments which Nature has bestowed on the most perfect species of this class of beings. 

 It has an extent of wing from twelve to fourteen feet ; the bill is strong, moderately hooked, and blunt 

 at the tip, which is white ; the rest of it is of a dusky colour. The male bird has a kind of gular pouch, 

 or large dilated skin of a bluish colour, proceeding from the base of the lower mandible, and reachino- 

 to some distance down the neck. On each side of the neck is also situated a row or series of flat 

 carneous, semicircular, or earshaped flaps or appendages, to the number of seven on each side, and 

 which gradually decrease in size as they descend, being so disposed as to lop slightly over each other. 

 The whole neck and breast are of a reddish-brown colour, and in some parts are nearly bare, beino- 

 only coated here and there with a few straggling filaments of blackish hair or coarse down. The colour 

 of the lateral wattles or carunculas inclines to blue. The crest or comb on the head is large, upright, 

 thick at the base, sharpened on its edge, and not entirely even in its outline, but somewhat sinuated, 

 sinking slightly in the middle, and rising higher on the back part ; it is smooth and irregularly convex 

 on the sides, and in its texture or substance not greatly dissimilar to the Vulture Papa of Linnaeus, or 

 king vulture. At a slight distance behind this, on each side, is situated a much smaller semioval nuchal 

 crest, of a similar substance, and beset with coarse down. The colour of the crest is blackish, slightly 

 inclining to red and blue in some parts. Towai'ds the lower part of the neck is a pendant pear-shaped 

 tubercle ; the lower part of the neck is surrounded by a collar of milk-white down or fine plumes, 

 representing exactly a tippet of white fur. The upper parts of the body, wing, and gar] are black, 

 except that the middle wing-coverts have whitish ends, and the greater coverts half black, half white. 

 The nine or ten first quills are black, the rest white, with the tips only black ; and when the wings are 

 closed, producing the appearance of the bird having the back white. This circumstance has misled 

 many naturalists in their description of this bird, who have been thence induced to describe it as having 

 the back white, whereas it was only the white secondaries which covered the back from the view. 

 Gmelin copied this error from Molina, and thus Mr. Latham was misled. The under parts of the 

 body are rather slightly covered with feathers, but those of the thighs are pretty long. The legs are 

 short and brown ; the claws black and blunt. 



The condor builds its nest in the highest mountains, under the shelter of some projecting shelf of a 

 rock, in which the female lays two white eggs, rather larger than those of a turkey. 



Father Teuille'e, speaking of the condor, says, " It is a bird of prey which haunts the valley of Zlo, 

 in Peru. I discovered one that was perched upon a great rock ; I approached it within musket shot, 

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