"She say you save baby from condor," the man said in his
halting English. "She t'ank you--me, I t'ank you. Bird see
babe in deer skin--t'ink um dead animal. Maybe so bird carry
baby off, drop um on sharp stone, baby smile no more. You
have our lives, senor! We do anyt'ing we can for you."
"Thanks," said Tom, easily. "I'm glad I happened to be
around. I supposed condors only went for things dead, but I
reckon, as you say, it mistook the baby in the deer skin for
a dead animal. And I guess it might have carried your little
one off, or at least lifted it up, and then it might have
dropped it far enough to have killed it. It sure is a big
bird," and Tom strolled over to look at what he had bagged.
The condor of the Andes is the largest bird of prey in
existence. One in the Bronx Zoo, in New York, with his wings
spread out, measured a little short of ten feet from tip to
tip. Measure ten feet out on the ground and then imagine a
bird with that wing stretch.
This same condor in the park was made angry by a boy
throwing a feather boa up into the air outside the cage. The
condor raised himself from the ground, and hurled himself
against the heavy wire netting so that the whole, big cage
shook. And the breeze caused by the flapping wings blew off
the hats of several spectators. So powerful was the air
force from the condor's wings that it reminded one of the
current caused when standing behind the propellers of an
aeroplane in motion.
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