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Mar., 1907
AN EXPERIENCE WITH THE SOUTH AMERICAN CONDOR
45

called to this particular pair when we first ueared the point by their darting toward us with a rush of wings and threatening screams. On the clear cold autumnal morning of March 18, 1904, Martin and I equipped ourselves with firearms and went out to capture the birds. As he neared the edge of the pampa the birds soared out from the cliffs and circlit?g came back toward him. His first shot tipped a wing of the male which wheeled and came down toward the beach where I had stationed myself. The second shot killed the female which fell on the ocean side of a landslide, high above the beach.

At this point the pampa has at some time in the past broken away in one gigantic piece, at least four hundred feet long and about one hundred and fifty feet across the top. The whole lump had slipped downward and outward about two hundred and fifty feet from its original position, leaving a perpendicular wall and wide crack or hollow which was then partially filled with earth and stones worn from the exposed surfaces. It was impossible from the beach to see the edge of the pampa immediately above on account of the landslide, which towered aloft two huudred and fifty feet; and on the other hand, the slope of the landslide oceanward, as well as the beach, was invisible from the pampa above.

NESTING SITE OF THE SOUTH AMERICAN CONDOR, ON SEA-CLIFF; NOTE
THE YOUNG BIRD ON THE NEST-LEDGIE TO THE RIGHT

The male tho within two hundred feet of the beach before he saw me below him was able to continue his gliding descent for at least a quarter of a mile up the beach against the wind, and reaching the ground with wings outstretched to gain advantage from the breeze ran with gigantic strides np the hard pebbly shore. In spite of his broken wing he led me a weary chase for more than a mile and a half before I gained sufficiently on him to plant a fatal shot from the little twenty-two I carried, just as he walked into the surf; and in order to finally get my hands on him I was obliged to run into the water to prevent his being washed entirely out of my reach. The female was found on a dangerous slope two hundred feet above the base of the cliff.