CONDOR. 
3 
it is well known to carry off in its prodigious talons a hind, or 
even a heifer, with as much ease as an Eagle would a rabbit! 
Such a creature could not of course dwell in forests, for how could 
it among trees display its enormous wings ? They were therefore 
limited to savannahs and open grounds. Antonio de Solis, 
Sloane in the Philosophical Transactions, and even the learned 
la Condamine, who saw the bird himself, and certainly witnessed 
no such exploits as had been related of it, indulged in wild 
theories depending on popular tales and superstitions. The 
obscurity created by so much misrepresentation could not however 
conceal its true Vulture-like nature from the acuteness of Ray, 
who pointed out its appropriate place in the system. His opinion 
was adopted by Brisson and Linne, and it became among 
naturalists generally a settled point, notwithstanding the elo¬ 
quently expressed doubts of Buffon, who wanted rather on account 
of its supposed great strength and agility to elevate the Condor 
to the rank of an Eagle, these qualities not permitting him to 
degrade it so low as the Vultures. But a still greater error of 
the French Pliny, as he may be on every account so appositely 
styled, was to consider the Condor as not peculiar to America, 
but as a genuine cosmopolite, of which happily there were but 
few, however, for otherwise the human race would not have 
been able to stand against them. But it was only in its imaginary 
character that the Condor of Buffon was truly cosmopolite, having 
no other existence than what was based upon absurd and ridiculous 
fictions gathered in all parts of the globe; for no living bird could 
be placed in competition with one for whose powers of flight 
distance was no impediment, and whose strength and swiftness 
united would have rendered him lord of creation. 
We should, however, make some allowance for the credulity of 
our forefathers, in believing upon the reports of weak or lying 
travellers all the romantic and extravagant tales related of this 
