A large bird occasionally seen among these mountains, and pronounced to be the condor, is far more likely to have been the Californian vulture.

As far as size is concerned, this mistake might easily be made, for the latter bird is nearly, if not quite, as large as the former.

A specimen of the Californian vulture has been measured, which proved to be four feet eight inches in length, and nine feet eight inches between the tips of the wings! Now, this is actually larger than the average size of the condors; and it is not improbable, therefore, that individuals of the Californian species may yet be found quite equal to the largest of the South American birds.
"The Californian vulture has been seen as far north as the thirty-ninth parallel of latitude.

He is common in some parts of Oregon, where he makes his nest in the tops of the tallest trees, constructing it of coarse thorny twigs and brambles, somewhat after the manner of eagles.
As many of the great spruce and pine-trees of Oregon and California are three hundred feet in height, and twenty feet thick at the base, this vulture is almost as secure among their tops as the condor on his mountain summit; but to render himself doubly safe, he always selects such trees as overhang inaccessible cliffs or rapid rivers.

The female lays only two eggs, which are nearly jet-black, and as large as those of a goose; and the young, like those of the condor, are for many weeks covered with down instead of feathers.