THE CALIFOBNIAN GONDOB. 297 



the California!! Condor for the paltriest of reasons — because, 

 forsooth, their magnificent hollow quills afforded rough-and- 

 ready purses for carrying gold-dust ! Again, the hot summer 

 compels the ranchmen to drive their herds into the cool valleys, 

 where many cattle and sheep are destroyed by Puma and Grizzly 

 Bear. To get rid of these giant vermin the half-eaten carcases 

 are poisoned, and the innocent Condors, feeding on them, are 

 destroyed in hundreds. In his day (1830), Mr. Douglas described 

 the giant birds as swarming on a carcase, so that a single doctored 

 Sheep might well deal out as deadly destruction as a Maxim-gun. 

 The range of the Californian Condor was never very extensive, 

 including only California, Oregon, Washington, and part of 

 British Columbia ; essentially a forest dweller, its home is now 

 limited to the wild gorges of the Sierra Nevada. 



The present species was first described under the name of 

 Vultur califomianus in the ninth volume of the ' Naturalist's 

 Miscellany ' by Dr. Shaw. The type-specimen was deposited in 

 the British Museum by Mr. Menzies, who had accompanied 

 Captain Vancouver's expedition. Many years afterwards a pair 

 were shot by Mr. Douglas ; these passed into the possession of 

 the Horticultural Society, and the Council subsequently pre- 

 sented them to the Zoological Society's Museum. At some 

 time previous to 1827 a living bird, said to be a Condor, was 

 brought to Europe, and may have belonged to this species ; its 

 plumage, however, was said to be brown, so that it may either 

 have been immature, or else belonging to some other species, 

 such as the rare and little known Brown Condor of Ecuador, 

 not to be confounded, of course, with the Condor of the Andes. 

 On June 22nd, 1866, Dr. Colbert A. Canfield, of Monterey, Cali- 

 fornia, presented a Californian Condor to the London Zoological 

 Gardens, through the agency of Prof. Baird. Capt. J. M. Dow 

 had brought it across the Isthmus of Panama, and it appears to 

 have been the first example imported alive into this country. 

 The specimen was figured in the ' Proceedings of the Zoological 

 Society' for 1866 ; it was already a " scarce bird." As regards 

 recent examples, it may be mentioned that after four years' efforts 

 the New York Zoological Society succeeded in obtaining a young 

 bird, which had been taken from the nest by a boy. It arrived 

 at the Zoological Park on March 14th, 1905. In January, 1906, 

 Zool. 4th ser. vol. XT., August, 1907, 2 A 



