THE LIVING WORLD. 
439 
VULTURES. 
The condor ordinarily contents himself with carrion, but at times it will attack the 
antelope or even the puma; it will sometimes join forces with a mate and successfully 
attack cattle. Its two-feet-aud-a-quarter body hardly lead one to expect the enormous 
muscular strength which it exhibits, and its tenacity of life renders it substantially 
invulnerable to the ordinary bullet. The condor is a glutton, and this leads to 
his easy capture by the natives, who, baiting with a carcase, wait until the 
condors have gorged themselves and then easily lasso them. The natives despise 
[the condor as they do a poisonous snake, or as the average man does a Nor¬ 
way rat. Hence, after capturing the creature, they spare no torments which 
their ingenuity can devise, so that the condor may be regarded as the frequent 
victim of a modern inquisition. 
Some naturalists believe that 
the condor is directed by scent, 
instead of by sight, but this be¬ 
lief is hardly as well supported 
by investigation as is the other. 
It is stated that four condors 
dragged the carcase of a grizzly 
bear several hundred yards al¬ 
though it weighed over a hun¬ 
dred pounds. The condor 
EGYPTIAN VULTURE. i. bearded vulture (Gypatos). 2 . sociable vulture. 3 . cathartes perenoptbrus. 
and his tribe exhibit considerable ingenuity in conducting their feasts. It 
does not find palatable or nutritious the leathery skin, hairy covering, and 
bony skeleton of its prey, and therefore with a skill which a taxidermist 
would envy, opens the stomach and entering into the cave of flesh eats 
away everything but the bone and the integument. It is said by travellers to 
be a common experience to find the effigies of various animals of which nothing 
continues but the outward semblance and .an empty name In the desert the 
conditions are favorable for a long-continued preservation of these empty body- 
cases, so that the multitude of lifeless forms have all the appearance of a great 
natural museum whose taxidermist possessed the most peifect skill. 
