food.  From these facts, the condor, like the gallinazo, must to a certain degree be considered as a gregarious bird.  In this part of the country they live altogether on the guanacos which have died a natural death, or, as more commonly happens, have been killed by the pumas.  I believe, from what I saw in Patagonia, they do not on ordinary occasions extend their daily excursions to any great distance from their regular sleeping-places.

The condors may oftentimes be seen at a great height, soaring over a certain spot in the most graceful circles.  On some occasions I am sure that they do this only for pleasure, but on others, the Chileno countryman tells you that they are watching a dying animal, or the puma devouring its prey.  If the condors glide down, and then suddenly all rise together, the Chileno knows that it is the puma which, watching the carcass, has sprung out to drive away the robbers.  Besides feeding on carrion, the condors frequently attack young goats and lambs; and the shepherd dogs are trained, whenever they pass over, to run out, and looking upwards to bark violently.  The Chilenos destroy and catch numbers.  Two methods are used; one is to place a carcass on a level piece of ground within an enclosure of sticks with an opening, and when the condors are gorged, to gallop up on horseback to the entrance, and thus enclose them; for when this bird has not space to run, it cannot give its body sufficient momentum to rise from the ground.  The second method is to mark the trees in which, frequently to the number of five or six together, they roost, and then at night to climb up and noose them.  They are such heavy sleepers, as I have myself witnessed, that this is not a difficult task.  At Valpariso, I have seen a living condor sold for sixpence, but the common price is eight or ten shillings.  One which I saw brought in had been tied with rope, and was much injured; yet, the moment the line was cut by which its bill was secured, although surrounded by people, it began ravenously to tear a piece of carrion.  In a garden at the same place, between twenty and thirty were kept alive.  They were fed only once a week, but they appeared in pretty good health.  The Chileno countrymen assert that the condor will live, and retain its vigor, between five and six weeks without eating; I cannot answer for the truth of this, but it is a cruel experiment, which very likely has been tried.

When an animal is killed in the country, it is well known that the condors, like other carrion-vultures, soon gain intelligence of it, and congregate in an inexplicable manner.  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 experiments of M. Audubon, on the little smelling powers of carrion-hawks, 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