assert, that the condor will live and retain its powers between five and six weeks without eating: I cannot answer for the truth of this fact, but it is a cruel experiment, which very likely has been tried. When an animal is killed in this country, it is well known that the condors, like other carrion vultures, gain the intelligence and congregate in a manner which often appears inexplicable. 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 opinion of M. Audubon on the deficient smelling powers of such birds,[3] 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. Having folded 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 of it. I then threw it on the ground within one yard of an old cock 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. When the condors in a flock are wheeling round and round any spot, their flight is beautiful. Except when they rise from the ground, I do not recollect ever to have seen one flap its wings. Near Lima, I watched several of these birds for a quarter and half an hour, without once taking off my eyes. They moved in large curves, sweeping in circles, descending and ascending without once flapping. As several glided close over my head, I intently watched, from an oblique position, the separate and terminal feathers of the wing; if there had been the least vibratory movement, their outlines would have been blended together, but they were seen distinct against the blue sky. The head and neck were moved frequently, and apparently with force. If the bird wished to descend, the wings were for a moment collapsed; and then, when again expanded with an altered inclination, the momentum gained by the rapid descent, seemed to urge the bird upwards, with the even and steady movement of a paper kite. It was a beautiful spectacle thus to behold these great vultures hour after hour, without any apparent exertion, wheeling and gliding over mountain and river.