Chapter 12
section twelve of birds and all nature volume four number six december eighteen ninety eight recorded for librivox dot org by nero tacita the california vulture Among the crags and caverns deep, the vulture rears his brood, Far-reaching in his vision's sweep, o'er valley plain in wood, And wheresoever quarry lies, it cannot scape his peering eyes. The traveler from the plain below sees first a speck upon the sky,
Then poised on sweeping wings of woe, a vulture bat-like passes by. CCM Dr. Brewer states that the single species composing this very distinct genus belongs to the western North America, and so far as known, has the most restricted distribution of all the large reptorial birds in the world. It is found on the coast ranges of Southern California, from Monterey Bay southward into Lower California.
It has become very much reduced in numbers and extinct in localities where it was formerly abundant, which is doubtless due to the indiscriminate use of poison which is placed on carcasses for the purpose of killing wolves, bears, lynxes, cougars, and other animals which destroy sheep, calves, and other cattle of the stockmen. Davy says it is more common in the warm valleys of California,
among the almost inaccessible cliffs of the rough mountain ranges running parallel with the Sierra Nevadas, for a hundred miles south of Monterey. It associates with the turkey buzzard, and the habits of both species are alike, and they often feed together on the same carcass. The vulture's flight is easy, graceful, and majestic. A writer who watched one of these gigantic birds thus pictures it.
High in air, an aeronaut had launched itself, the California condor. Not a wing or feather moved, but resting on the wind, like a kite, the great bird. almost if not quite the equal of its Andean cousin, soared in great circles, ever lifted by the wind, and rising higher and higher into the emeryne.
Not a motion of the wing could be seen with careful scrutiny through the glass, but every time the bird turned and faced the wind it seemed to be bound upward, as though lifted by some superhuman power,
then bearing away before it, gathering the force or momentum which shot its air leaden frame higher and higher. until it almost disappeared from sight. A living balloon. The ordinary California buzzard, and the singular ravens of the Santa Catalina Island, often give marvelous exhibitions of
soaring or rising into the air without moving their wings, and when it is remembered that their bodies are reduced to a minimum of weight, and that even the bones are filled with air, it is almost scientifically and literally true that they are living balloons. And yet the weight of the vulture is sometimes 25 pounds, requiring immense wings, eight and a half to eleven feet from tip to tip to support it. Mr. H.R. Taylor of the Late Needologist says there have probably
but three or four eggs of the California vulture been taken, of which he has one. The egg was taken in May, 1889, in the Santa Lucia Mountains, San Luis Obispo County, California, at an altitude of 3,480 feet. It was deposited in a large cave in the side of a perpendicular bluff, which the collector entered by means of a long rope from above. The bird was on the nest, which was in a low place in the rock, and which was, the collector says, lined
with feathers plucked from her own body. This assertion, however, Mr. Taylor says, may be an unwarranted conclusion. From the facts at hand, it appears that the California condor lay but a single egg. The condor is not an easy bird to capture, for it has a fierce temper and a powerful beak. An unusually large one, however, was recently taken in Monterey County, California. To catch the mighty creature, William J. Berry made use of a lasso, such as ranchmen have with which to round up obstreperous cattle.
The strength of one man was barely sufficient to imprison it. It is said that the appetite of the bird was not affected by its loss of liberty.
