The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-12-16
THE FARMER ERaDECEMBER 16. 1912
OUR BIC CONDORS
In Weight and Spread of Wing
 They Surpass All Other Birds.
MYSTERY IN THEIR FLIGHTS.

With Fixed Outspread Wings These
 Wonderful Birds Will Sweep Upward
 and Onward Through the Air With
 out the Movement of Feather.
 It is not commonly known that we have a condor in the United States, yet there is one on the Pacific coast that in weight and spread of wing sur passes all other birds. From tip to tip of wing it measures more than ten feet, considerably more than the con dor of the Andes and about a yard more than the largest eagle or swan.
 This condor is black, unged with brown, except under the wings, where there is a long, narrow strip of almost pure white running the whole length of the wing and widening near the body. It has no ruff round the neck, but a fringe of long, narrow black feathers on the back of the neck gives it a savage appearance.> It nests among the rocks in lofty cliffs, laying several white eggs much larger than those of the turkey or goose. From 1875 to 1885 condors were so abun- dant in southern California that used to see them almost every day, but now they are found only in the wilder noun tains. Their eggs bring $1O0 each in the 1dISOT huSG0A1S O1 LAO
 If an animal is sick or disabled the condor rarely hesitates to attack it, and it's fate is soon sealed if it is not strong enough to defend itself or es- cape its enemy
 Like the condor of the Andes, that of California will so gorge itself with food at times that it can be lassoed in the quick dash of a good horse. A friend of mine at San Jacinto had one that had been caught in that way. But, although he had thousands of sheep and cattle, he had to give the, bird away because he could not afford to feed it. It would eat whole sheep at a meal and then look hungry and sad, as if it were badly treated.
 Once clear of the ground, with wings outspread, the condor has no trouble in bearing away into the clouds din- ner that will last a week or two.
 Standing on the ground at distance this great bird looks much like a big black Newfoundland dog sitting up for a cracker, but in the air it surpasses in grace and variety of action every other wanderer of the skies. The whooping crane, that floats like speck of down in the remotest blue; the frigate bird, whose wing seems never made to fold, even the albatross, are all clumsy and monotonous compared with the condor. It travels in a series of winding lines, in which symmetry and grace always govern the boldest sweeps or the high est bursts of speed
 Dozens of times I have laid among the rocks and had the condor come so near that I could plainly see the spar kle of the brown eye in the vivid red of the bare head, and with the strong glass that I always carried in hunting deer I have brought the bird much nearer. Yet never could I detect the slightest motion of wing or feathers beyond lazy lap or two at intervals of several minutes or a simple inbend- ing of the tips of the wings, as if feel ing the breeze to be sure 1t was there. And the bird often floats an hour or more without even this slight motion.
 It is quite wonderful when the con- dor sets its wings and slides sidewise across strong breeze without any de- scent, yet without falling backward, and still more so to see the great bird return with a swing of half a mile or more, arriving hundreds of feet above the point of starting and perhaps hun dreds of yards ahead of it.
 When have been well hidden among the EOckS nave seen -COnQOr W1T11n a few yards hanging on the air for many seconds at a time-not like the hawk balancing itself to fall upon some bird below, but seeming to sleep there as peacefully and quietly as a summer cloud. Then suddenly the bird has turned half over and cleft the air with a sharp hiHs of wing feathers, for which there was not the slightest mo- tion of 6 wing to account And all this time the condor has been rising instead of falling, and have vainly watched the fringed tips of the great wings for the slightest sign of motfon.-T. s. Van Dyke in Youths Companion.
 James Lick'S Test.
 This is fold Of Ia ioIx