NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CONDOR. 



103 



in imitation of fishing with the Jacquinia armillaris or the piscidia. 

 The Spaniards call this method of fishing, embarbascar. 



The condor, taken alive, is at first melancholy and timid ; but he 

 soons becomes very mischievous. I kept a female for eight days in 

 my house at Quito ; but it was dangerous to approach her, for fear 

 had rendered her quite savage. 



The condor is more tenacious of life than any other bird of prey. 

 At Riobamba, while at the house of our friend Don Xavier Montufar, 

 corregidor of the province, we were present at the attempts made by 

 some Indians to kill a condor. They commenced by strangling him 

 with a noose ; they hung him on a tree ; they pulled him forcibly by 

 the legs for several minutes : the noose was scarcely taken off, when the 

 condor walked as if nothing had been done to him. Three pistol-balls 

 were then fired at him at less than four paces distance. By these he was 

 wounded in the neck, breast, and abdomen ; still he continued on his 

 feet. A fifth ball struck against the thigh bone (femur), and fell 

 again to the earth. The corregidor, Don Juan Bernardo Leon, to 

 whose kindness I own many interesting remarks on the animals of 

 Quito, was present on the occasion. The condor did not die till half 

 an hour after he had received so many wounds. M. Bonpland kept 

 the ball, thus repelled by the shock against the thigh-bone, for a long 

 time. 



This observation, however extraordinary it may seem, has, however, 

 already been made before. The astronomer Ulloa relates that in the 

 cold region of Peru, the condor's skin is often so closely covered with 

 feathers, that eight or ten balls have been known to strike against the 

 body of the bird without one of them having been able to pierce it. % 



The condor which we examined was covered with an immense 

 number of brown lice (pediculi), I am sorry I was so remiss as not to 

 have described them ; they are of another species than the vulture 

 louse (Pediculus vulturis,) described by Fabricius^f which, how- 

 ever, may also be found on the Indian vultures. 



The condor prefers dead carcases to living animals, though he sub- 

 sists on both ; it also seems that he pursues small birds less than he 

 does quadrupeds. 



* La pluma de condor forma un entretexido tan bien preparado, que no lo penetra 

 la bala del fusil ; ni el animal, se inmuta al recebir el golpe. En la parte alta del 

 Peru hasuccedido that le 8 a 10 tisos seguidos, ogendo dar las balas sobre el y caer 

 estas al suelo de rechazo sin haberle hecho dano alguno.- — (Ulloa, Noticias Americanos, 

 p. 158, s. 18.) 



t Fabricius, Mantissa Inseetorum, ii. 369, No. 12. 



