170 
NATURAL HISTORY 
Condor. (PI. 24.) Birds of the rapacious order are 
all carnivorous; they associate in pairs, build their nests 
in the most lofty situations, and the female is generally 
larger than the male. 
If size and strength, combined with rapidity of flight 
and rapacity, were allowed to deserve pre-eminence, no 
bird could be put in competition with the condor of 
America; which possesses, in a higher degree than the 
eagle, all the qualities that render it formidable, not only 
to the feathered kind, but to beasts, and even to man 
himself. The wings of this bird measure twelve feet 
three inches from tip to tip, and the great feathers, which 
are of a beautiful shining black, is two feet four inches 
long. The length of the beak is about four inches, and 
its thickness proportionable to the rest of the body. A 
short down of a brown colour clothes the head, and its 
eyes are surrounded with a circle of reddish brown. 
The plumage on the breast, neck, and wings is of a light 
brown: that on the back rather darker. The legs are 
covered wdth black scales, and the toes are armed with 
claws of the same colour. 
In several parts of the mountains of Quito, these ani- 
mals have been known to carry away sheep and children; 
and to prevent which, requires the utmost exertion of 
the inhabitants and shepherds. 
Butcher Bird. ( Lanius Excubitor. Lin. PI, 24.) 
This bird is about the size of a thrush, and it has a 
strong black bill, nearly an inch long, and hooked at the 
end, which, together with its carnivorous appetites, ranks 
it among birds of the rapacious class: though the slen- 
derness of its legs, and the formation of its toes, seem 
to make it a shade between them and such as subsist 
chiefly upon grain and insects. The feathers on the up- 
per part of the body are of a reddish ash-colour; those 
on the breast are white, diversified with a few dark co- 
loured lines. The habits of this bird seem perfectly 
analogous to its conformation, as it lives as well upon 
flesh as upon insects, and thus seems to partake, in some 
measure, of a double nature. - 
The nest of the female is composed on the outside of 
