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Show 252 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. those mountains, although situated in 29 to 30t degrees of latitude, as accessible as the Peruvian Andes within the tropics. Captain Gerard has attained on the Tarhigang an elevation as great, and perhaps (as is maintained in the Critical Researches on Philosophy and Geography) 117 English feet greater than that reached by me on the Chimborazo. Unfortunately, as I have shown more at large in another place, these mountain journeys beyond the limits of perpetual snow (however they may engage the curiosity of the public) are of only very inconsiderable scientific use. (2) p. 228.-" The Condor, the giant of tl~e Vulture tribe." In my Recueil d'Observations de Zoologic et d' Anatomic comparee, vol. i. pp. 26-45, I have given the natural history of the Condor, which, before my journey to the equatorial regions, had been much misrepresented. (The name of the bird is properly Cuntur, in the Inca language; in Chili, in the Araucan, l\fafique; Sarcpramphus Condor of Dumeril.) I made and had engraved a drawing of the head from the living bird, and of the size of nature. Next to the Condor, the Ltimmergeier of Switzerland, and the Falco destructor of Daudin, probably the Falco Harpyia of Linnreus, are the largest flying birds. The region which may be regarded as the ordinary haunt of the Condor begins at the height of Etna, and comprises atmospheric strata from ten to eighteen thousand (about 10,600 to 19,000 English) feet above the level of the sea. Humming birds, which make summer excursions as far as 61 o N. latitude on the northwest coast of America on the one hand, and the Tierra del Fuego on the other, have been seen by Von Tschudi (Fauna Peruana, Ornithol. p. 12), in Puna, as high as 13,700 (14,600 English) feet. There is a pleasure in comparing the largest and the smallest of the feathered inhabitants of the air. Of the Condors, the largest individuals found in the chain of the Andes round Quito measured, with extended wings, 14 (nearly 15 English) feet, and the smallest 8 (8! English) feet. From these dimensions, and from the visual angle at which the bird often appeared vertically above our heads, we are enabled to infer the enormous height to which the Condor soars when the sky is serene. A visual angle of 4', for example, gives a perpendicular height above the eye |