102 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CONDOR. 



The condor, when gorged, remains phlegm atically perched upon the 

 top of a rock. I have found him, in this situation, maintaining an air 

 of dull and sinister gravity. Like the carrion vulture (Vultur aura), 

 one may drive him along without his giving himself the trouble to fly 

 off ; but when tormented by hunger, he takes wing and rises to a pro- 

 digious height, floating in the sky and embracing at a glance the vast 

 expanse of country which is to furnish him with his prey. It is parti- 

 cularly on days when the atmosphere has been very serene, that I have 

 observed the condor, and also the gallinazo ( Vultur aura) at extra- 

 ordinary heights. One might suppose that the great transparency of 

 the air invited them to review a great space of country, which in more 

 cloudy weather the piercing sight of these aerial hunters could not grasp. 



In Peru, at Quito, and in the province of Popayan, the people have 

 a method of taking the condor alive with nooses. Other travellers, I 

 believe, have already described this extraordinary sport, which is en- 

 gaged in principally to amuse European strangers. An ox or a horse 

 is killed, and, in a short time, the stench of the dead animal attracts 

 the condors, whose sense of smelling is extremely acute. A great 

 number of them are seen to appear in places where one could have 

 scarcely thought that any could be. The bird eats with inconceivable 

 voracity. He always begins with the eyes and tongue, which seem to 

 be his favourite morsels ; he then proceeds to the vent in order to get 

 easily at the intestines. When the condors have gorged themselves, 

 they are too heavy to fly off ; the Indians then pursue them with 

 nooses, and catch them with ease. We are told that the bird makes 

 great efforts to rise into the air : in this he succeeds, if, exhausted by 

 the pursuit, he happen to vomit abundantly. In these efforts, I have no 

 doubt, the condor alternately stretches and retracts his neck, and brings 

 his claws near his beak. This manoeuvre, certainly accidental, has led 

 the country-people to say, that the condor, in order to save itself by 

 provoking vomiting, puts one of its toes into its mouth. I do not 

 think the talon of the condor would tickle very gently the parts which 

 it touched. The Spaniards call this sport correr huitres, and, after 

 their bull-fights, it forms one of the chief amusements of the people. 

 One may imagine to what cruelty these unfortunate condors are con- 

 signed when thus taken alive by the Indians : an insect would not 

 suffer more in the hands of an entomologist. 



I was told, at Riobamba, that, to make the catching of the condors 

 easier, poisonous plants were sometimes put into the belly of the 

 animal exposed to them. The condors then seem inebriated. This is 



