THE CALIFORNIA CONDOR 



LEWIS and Clark found the California Condor as far north as 

 the Columbia River in Oregon, and, at this time, it was dis- 

 tributed southward through California to northern Lower 

 California. This was assuredly a surprisingly restricted range for a bird 

 possessing such unusual powers of flight; but it now occupies an even 

 smaller area, being found only in the Coast Ranges of southern Cali- 

 fornia, from Monterey County southward. 



The Condor's rapid decrease is believed to have been occasioned by 

 its feeding on the poisoned carcasses of cattle exposed by ranchmen as 

 bait for bears, panthers and wolves. Since these predaceous animals 

 have now become exterminated or greatly decreased, this unfortunate 

 custom has been abandoned and the Condor is now holding its own. 



The California Condor weighs from 20 to 25 pounds, and while not 

 so heavy a bird as the Condor of the Andes, slightly exceeds it in stretch 

 of wing, the average California Condor measuring about nine feet from 

 tip to tip. When flying, the Condor bears a strong resemblance to the 

 Turkey Buzzard, but when the two are seen together the Condor's much 

 greater size is pronounced, while its white under wing-coverts are con- 

 spicuous as the bird soars overhead. 



The Condor lays its single egg in crevices in the rocks or in caves 

 without pretense of nest, in February and March, and the researches of 

 Finley and Bohlman show that the young bird is between four and five 

 months old before it makes its initial flight. 



Studies for the present group were made in Piru Canon, some twenty 

 miles north of the village of Piru, and fifty miles southeast of Santa 

 Barbara, where for many years a pair of birds had nested in a cave 

 which pierced the vertical canon wall 150 feet above the water. From 

 this cave were taken, when young, the Condors now (1915) living in the 

 National Zoological Park in Washington, D. C. 



The visitor is supposed to be in the Condor's cave, from which he 

 looks up the canon. The cave was not occupied at the time the studies 

 were made, a passing hunter having wantonly shot one of the birds. 



Condors were also found by the Museum expedition up the Agua 

 Blanca, a tributary of the Piru, on one occasion seven of the magnifi- 

 cent birds being in sight at once. 



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