196 
ANIMAL CURIOSITIES 
spot in the most graceful circles. On some 
occasions I am sure that they do this only for 
pleasure, but on others the Chileno country¬ 
man tells you that they are watching a dying 
animal, or a puma devouring its prey. If the 
condors glide down, and then suddenly all rise 
together, the Chileno knows that it is the 
puma which, watching the carcass, has sprung 
out to drive away the robbers. Besides feeding 
on carrion, the condors frequently attack 
young goats and lambs, and the shepherd- 
dogs are trained, whenever they pass over, 
to run out and, looking upwards, to bark 
violently.” 
Several methods are employed to capture 
condors, one of which is to lasso them when 
they are gorged and unable to rise quickly 
from the ground, while another way is to place 
a carcass upon the earth, an enclosure of sticks, 
with an entrance left open at one end, being 
made around the bait. When the condors 
have repleted themselves with food, men gallop 
up on horseback, and the birds are then easily 
captured as they have not enough room within 
the enclosure to enable them to run along the 
ground before rising into the air. A third 
method is to noose the birds at night when 
they are roosting amidst the branches of the 
trees, a task that is not so difficult to accomplish 
