The Buzzard. 
197 
Condor's feet and talons are not fitted for carrying any 
great weight. Both the talons and the bill are indeed 
of extraordinary strength, but they are intended for 
tearing objects to pieces ; and consequently we find that 
the Condor feeds chiefly on dead or dying cattle, or 
horses, which he tears to pieces and devours where they 
lie. When the Condor is gorged the hunters attack 
him, but his strength and fierceness are so great, that 
one of Sir Francis Head's companions, who attempted 
to seize a gorged Condor, said he never had " such a 
battle in his life;" though he had been a Cornish miner 
and was reckoned an excellent wrestler in his own 
country. 
THE BUZZARD. (Falco Buteo, or Buteo vulgaris.) 
" The no.ble Buzzard ever pleased me best ; 
Of small renown, 't is true ; for, not to lie, 
We call him but a Hawk by courtesy." 
Hind and Panther. 
This is a rapacious bird, of the hawk kind, and the 
most common of all in England. It is of a sluggish, 
indolent nature, often remaining perched on the same 
bough for the greater part of the day : as if, indifferent 
either to the allurements of food or of pleasure, it were 
doomed, like some of the human species, to pass its 
allotted span of life in passive contemplation. It feeds 
