condor sold for sixpence, but the common price is eight or ten
shillings. One which I saw brought in, had been tied with rope, and was
much injured; yet, the moment the line was cut by which its bill was
secured, although surrounded by people, it began ravenously to tear a
piece of carrion. In a garden at the same place, between twenty and
thirty were kept alive. They were fed only once a week, but they
appeared in pretty good health. [2] The Chileno countrymen assert that
the condor will live, and retain its vigour, between five and six weeks
without eating: I cannot answer for the truth of this, but it is a
cruel experiment, which very likely has been tried.
When an animal is killed in the country, it is well known that the
condors, like other carrion-vultures, soon gain intelligence of it, and
congregate in an inexplicable manner. In most cases it must not be
overlooked, that the birds have discovered their prey, and have picked
the skeleton clean, before the flesh is in the least degree tainted.
Remembering the experiments of M. Audubon, on the little smelling
powers of carrion-hawks, I tried in the above mentioned garden the
following experiment: the condors were tied, each by a rope, in a long
row at the bottom of a wall; and having folded up a piece of meat in
white paper, I walked backwards and forwards, carrying it in my hand at
the distance of about three yards from them, but no notice whatever was
taken. I then threw it on the ground, within one yard of an old male
bird; he looked at it for a moment with attention, but then regarded it
no more. With a stick I pushed it closer and closer, until at last he
touched it with his beak; the paper was then instantly torn off with
fury, and at the same moment, every bird in the long row began
struggling and flapping its wings. Under the same circumstances, it
would have been quite impossible to have deceived a dog. The evidence
in favour of and against the acute smelling powers of carrion-vultures
is singularly balanced. Professor Owen has demonstrated that the
olfactory nerves of the turkey-buzzard (Cathartes aura) are highly
developed, and on the evening when Mr. Owen's paper was read at the
Zoological Society, it was mentioned by a gentleman that he had seen
the carrion-hawks in the West Indies on two occasions collect on the
roof of a house, when a corpse had become offensive from not having
been buried, in this case, the intelligence could hardly have been
acquired by sight. On the other hand, besides the experiments of
Audubon and that one by myself, Mr. Bachman has tried in the United
States many varied plans, showing that neither the turkey-buzzard (the
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