CONDOR. 401 
the roc of Marco Polo and the Arabian Tales. Some authors 
have indeed referred this name to it, and even go so far as to 
make it the subject of one of the labours of Hercules, the 
destruction of the Stymphalian birds. Such, in fact, were the 
stories related by the early travellers, that, even when reduced 
to what in the judgment of Buffon was their real value, it 
cannot but now appear unaccountable that they should ever 
have found credence, and still more so that compilers should 
have gone on accumulating under the condor’s history, not 
merely the tales told of it, but others collected from every 
quarter of the globe, however remote or different in climate, 
not hesitating to give currency to the most revolting absur- 
dities. The accounts of Father Feuillée, who was the first 
describer, Frezier, and especially Hawkesworth’s, appear, how- 
ever, to be tolerably correct; while the ardent imagination 
of Garcilasso led him to indulge in the wildest extravagances 
in relation to this bird. Abbeville and De Laet, no less than 
Acosta in his “ History of the Indies,” ascribed to this cowardly 
vulture the strength, courage, and raptorial habits of an eagle, 
and even in a higher degree, thus doing him the honour to 
represent him as formidable to every living creature, and the 
dreaded enemy of man himself. Desmarchais improves if 
possible upon these stories, giving the condor still greater 
size and strength, and stating that it is well known to carry 
off in its prodigious talons a hind, or even a heifer, with as 
much ease as an eagle would a rabbit! Such a creature could 
not of course dwell in forests, for how could it among trees 
display its enormous wings? They were therefore limited to 
savannahs and open grounds. Antonio de Solis, Sloane in the 
‘“ Philosophical Transactions,” and even the learned La Conda- 
mine, who saw the bird himself, and certainly witnessed no 
such exploits as had been related of it, indulged in wild theories 
depending on popular tales and superstitions. The obscurity 
created by so much misrepresentation could not, however, con- 
ceal its true vulture-like nature from the acuteness of Ray, 
who pointed out its appropriate place in the system. His 
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