he pit. Not to be disappointed of their
prey, they hold tightly to the body, and descend with it. Here, having
gorged themselves, they are unable to rise again to the mouth of the
pit, and are speedily killed with stones and sticks by the natives who
collect round it, or are drawn captive to the surface. Dr Tschudi, in
his Travels, mentions having seen twenty-eight birds at one time thus
destroyed.

They are caught in a similar manner in other places, and brought down to
the coast, where they are sold for a few dollars; and often thus find
their way to Europe. It was long an unsettled point whether the condor
discovers the dead animals on which it feeds by the power of sight or of
scent; but Darwin, by several experiments, has settled the question in
favour of the bird's keenness of vision.

A number of condors were kept captive in a garden, secured by ropes.
Wrapping up a piece of meat in white paper, and holding it in his hand,
he walked up and down in front of the birds; but they took no notice of
it. He then threw it down in front of an old male bird; but it was
still disregarded. He then pushed it with a stick till it touched the
condor's beak, when the paper was torn off with fury, and every bird in
the row began struggling and flapping its wings to reach the food.
Under the same circumstances, no dog would have been deceived.

The condor is said formerly to have been worshipped in Peru. Perhaps
the Peruvians, seeing it descend through the air from beyond their
sight, supposed it a celestial messenger from the sun, which they
worshipped. If so, their descendants treat it in a very different way
to what they must then have done.

A condor ordinarily measures nine feet from tip to tip of the wings, and
slightly over four feet from beak to tail.

PART THREE, CHAPTER NINE.

THE VEGETABLE PRODUCTIONS OF THE CORDILLERAS.

CHINCHONA OR PERUVIAN BARK.

The chinchona (it is erroneously spelt cinchona) tree constitutes the
type of a natural order (Chinchonaceae), which also includes
ipecacuanhas and coffees.

On the western slopes of Chimborazo, and in several other regions
extending from the wooded heights of Merida and Santa Martha, at the
northern end of the Cordilleras, as far as the Republic of Bolivia, 19
degrees south, the chinchona-tree has its range. Vegetation in the
Cordilleras within the tropics reaches to a much greater height than in
higher latitudes. The sun's rays have there great po