416 CONDOR. 
where they are less lofty ; the condor inhabiting pretty nearly 
the same altitude with the Cinchone and other subalpine 
plants. It is, moreover, according to the observations of 
Humboldt, the invariable companion of the guanaco for an 
extent of nearly three thousand miles of coast, after which 
this animal is no longer seen ; but the condor continues to be 
met with much beyond this, as if quite indifferent to climate, 
or because it can regulate it by varying its elevation with the 
change of latitude. In the eastern or even southern United 
States a condor has never been seen, though the king vulture 
of South America has been occasionally observed. The chief 
abode of the condor is indeed on the highest summits of the 
Andes, some of which are covered with perpetual snow, and is 
fixed by Humboldt at between three thousand one hundred 
and four thousand nine hundred metres. Every time, says he, 
that I have been herborising near the limits of perpetual snow, 
we were sure to be surrounded by condors. These mountains 
and the forests that clothe their sides are the condor’s home, 
and from these their excursions are extended over the whole 
neighbourhood to the very sea, from which they may be 
often seen hovering at prodigious heights and describing vast 
circles, but always ready to lower themselves by degrees when- 
ever they espy a chance of satisfying their voracious appetite. 
They are only known, however, to descend towards the sea- 
shore during the rainy season, corresponding to our winter, 
when they come in search of food and warmer weather: they 
then obtain the bodies of large fishes or marine animals, such 
as whales or seals, and the prospect of finding these is their 
principal attraction to the shore: they arrive here at evening, 
and as a journey of several hundred miles requires for them 
but little time or exertion, as soon as their meal is digested, 
and they begin to feel lighter, they return to their favourite 
rocks, often during the following day. They have sometimes 
been killed at sea, floating on the dead body of a whale which 
they were tearing for food. They exhibit the common pro- 
pensity of their tribe for carrion, and nothing but the urgent 
