flocks during the day remained on the mud-banks at the head of the harbor, in the same manner as on the grassy plains near the Parana; and every evening they took flight seaward.  From these facts I suspect that the Rhynchops generally fishes by night, at which time many of the lower animals come most abundantly to the surface.  M. Lesson states that he has seen these birds opening the shells of the mactrae buried in the sandbanks on the coast of Chile; from their weak bills, with the lower mandible so much projecting, their short legs and long wings, it is very improbable that this can be a general habit.

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THE CONDOR

(FROM A JOURNAL OF RESEARCHES, ETC.)

BY CHARLES DARWIN.

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This day I shot a condor.  It measured from tip to tip of the wings eight and a half feet, and from beak to tail, four feet.  This bird is known to have a wide geographical range, being found on the west coast of South America, from the Strait of Magellan along the Cordillera as far as eight degrees north of the equator.  The steep cliff near the mouth of the Rio Negro is its northern limit on the Patagonian coast; and they have there wandered about four hundred miles from the great central line of their habitation in the Andes.  Further south, among the bold precipices at the head of Port Desire, the condor is not uncommon; yet only a few stragglers occasionally visit the seacoast.  A line of cliff near the mouth of the Santa Cruz is frequented by these birds, and about eighty miles up the river, where the sides of the valley are formed by steep basaltic precipices, the condor reappears.  From these facts, it seems that the condors require perpendicular cliffs.  In Chile, they haunt, during the greater part of the year, the lower country near the shores of the Pacific, and at night several roost together in one tree; but in the early part of summer, they retire to the most inaccessible parts of the inner Cordilleras, there to breed in peace.

With respect to their propagation, I was told by the country people in Chile, that the condor makes no sort of nest, but in the months of November and December lays two large white eggs on a shelf of bare rock.  It is said that the young condors cannot fly for an entire year; and long after they are able, they continue to roost by night, and hunt with their parents.  The old birds generally live in pairs; but among the inland basaltic cliffs of the Santa Cruz, I found a spot, where scores must usually haunt.  On coming suddenly to the brow of the precipice, it was a grand spectacle to see between twenty and thirty of these birds start heavily from their resting-place, and wheel away in majestic circles.  From the quantity of dung on the rocks, they must long have frequented this place for roosting and breeding.  Having gorged themselves with carrion on the plains below, they retire to these favorite ledges to digest their