plumage is well known to the belles of Europe and the United States.

The Strathophagi had an ingenious mode of taking these animals. They disguised themselves in the skin of an Ostrich, and putting one of their arms through the neck, they imitated all its motions. By this means, they are said to have been enabled to approach and take them at pleasure.

Ostriches are sometimes bred in flocks, for they are easily tamed. In this domestic state they play and frisk about with much vivacity, and are tractable and familiar towards those who are acquainted with them. To strangers however they are often fierce, and will attack them with fury, making an angry hissing noise, having their throats inflated and their mouths open. During the night they frequently utter a discordant cry, which bears a resemblance to the distant roaring of a lion, or the hoarse tone of a bear or an ox when in great agony.

THE CONDOR.

The most romantic and wonderful stories were at one time told and believed, of the size and exploits of the Condor. Modern travellers, however, have exposed the exaggerations of former writers, and given a true description of this remarkable bird.

The length of a male specimen of the Condor, somewhat less than nine feet in the expanse of its wings, was three feet three inches from the tip of the beak to the extremity of the tail. Its height, when perching, with

the neck partly withdrawn, was two feet eight inches. Its beak was two inches and three quarters in length, and an inch and a quarter in depth when closed.

a few short brown or blackish hairs. On the top of the head is an oblong firm coruncle or comb, covered by a continuation of the skin which invests the head. This

is peculiar to the male. Behind the eyes, the skin of the neck is apparently gathered into a series of descending folds, extending over the temples to the under side of the neck, and capable of being dilated at pleasure, like that of the common turkey. Round the lower part of the neck, both sexes are furnished with a broad white ruff of downy feathers.

The general colour of the plumage in this bird is a bright black, mingled with a grayish tinge of greater or less intensity. The wings of the male are distinguished by large white patches. The tail is short and wedgeshaped. The legs are very thick and powerful, and coloured with a bluish gray.

The Condor has been observed throughout the whole range of the Andes in South America, but is much more common in Peru and Chili than any where else. It is most frequently met with at an elevation of from ten to fifteen thousand feet above the level of the ocean. Here they may be seen in small groups of three or four, sitting on the bold points of the jutting rocks, many of the most remarkable of which have received their names from the bird which haunts their pinnacles.

The habits of the Condor unite the ferocity of the eagle, with the disgusting filthiness of the vulture. Although like the latter it appears to prefer the dead carcass, it frequently makes war upon a living prey. The

gripe of its talons, however, is not sufficiently firm, to enable it to carry off its victim through the air. Two of them together will frequently attack a lama, a calf, or even a full-grown cow. They pursue the wretched animal with the utmost pertinacity, tearing it with their beaks and talons, till it falls exhausted through loss of blood. Then having first seized upon its tongue, they proceed to tear out its eyes, and commence their feast upon these favourite morsels.

The Condor is remarkably tenacious of life. After having been hung sometime by the neck in a noose, it has been observed, when taken down for dead, to rise and walk away as rapidly as if nothing had happened. It will also receive several pistol-bullets in the body, without appearing much incommoded. The great size and strength of its plumage defends its body to a considerable degree from the effects of a shot. It is easily killed when shot or struck sufficiently hard about the head.

When first taken captive, the Condor is sulky and timid, but it soon becomes savage and dangerous. After a time, however, it seems to become reconciled to confinement, and bears it tolerably well.

THE BALD EAGLE.

This remarkable bird is common to both continents, and is met with from a very high northern latitude to the borders of the torrid zone. It is chiefly found, however, in

the vicinity of the sea, and along the shores and cliffs of our lakes and large rivers.

"Formed by nature for braving the severest cold; feeding equally upon the produce of the sea and of the land; possessing power of flight capable of outstripping even the tempests themselves; unawed by any thing but man; and from the etherial height to which he soars, looking abroad at one glance, on an immeasurable expanse of forests, fields, lakes and ocean deep below him, he appears indifferent to the little localities of change of seasons; as in a few minutes he can pass from summer to winter, from the lower to the higher regions of the atmosphere, the abode of eternal cold; and thence des