fly till nearly two years old, and continue for a
considerable time after taking wing to roost and hunt with their
parents. The white ruff on the neck, and the similarly coloured feathers
of the wing, do not appear until the completion of the first moulting.
By preference the condor feeds on carrion, but it does not hesitate to
attack sheep, goats and deer, and for this reason it is hunted down by
the shepherds, who, it is said, train their dogs to look up and bark at
the condors as they fly overhead. They are exceedingly voracious, a
single condor of moderate size having been known, according to Orton, to
devour a calf, a sheep and a dog in a single week. When thus gorged with
food, they are exceedingly stupid, and may then be readily caught. For
this purpose a horse or mule is killed, and the carcase surrounded with
palisades to which the condors are soon attracted by the prospect of
food, for the weight of evidence seems to favour the opinion that those
vultures owe their knowledge of the presence of carrion more to sight
than to scent. Having feasted themselves to excess, they are set upon by
the hunters with sticks, and being unable, owing to the want of space
within the pen, to take the run without which they are unable to rise on
wing, they are readily killed or captured. They sleep during the greater
part of the day, searching for food in the clearer light of morning and
evening. They are remarkably heavy sleepers, and are readily captured by
the inhabitants ascending the trees on which they roost, and noosing
them before they awaken. Great numbers of condors are thus taken alive,
and these, in certain districts, are employed in a variety of
bull-fighting. They are exceedingly tenacious of life, and can exist, it
is said, without food for over forty days. Although the favourite haunts
of the condor are at the level of perpetual snow, yet it rises to a much
greater height, Humboldt having observed it flying over Chimborazo at a
height of over 23,000 ft. On wing the movements of the condor, as it
wheels in majestic circles, are remarkably graceful. The birds flap
their wings on rising from the ground, but after attaining a moderate
elevation they seem to sail on the air, Charles Darwin having watched
them for half an hour without once observing a flap of their wings.

CONDORCET, MARIE JEAN ANTOINE NICOLAS CARITAT, MARQUIS DE (1743-1794),
French mathematician, philosopher and Revolutionist, was born at
Ribemo