I38 THE CONDOR ] VOL. VIII as I saw the old condor with her feathers ruffled, sitting at the mouth of her cave, and watched the whole performance thru my fieldglass. Down the mountain I went in haste that was dangerous and might have re- sulted in disaster had I not caught in some bushes. At the bottom I met the third member of the party, who was as excited as myself. When we reached the tree be- low the nest, we still found the condor watching her human visitor, who was look- ing out from behind the tree. But at the sight of two more men, with one or two huge wing-sweeps, she jumped over to the perch on the tree-top thirty feet away, TH I? OlD (?ONDOR ON ONE OF HIS FAVORITE I?I?RCHES. I?HOTO is likely to come at the very time it is not wanted. and then after watching us a few minutes, silently and sul- lenly spread her wings and sailed down the canyon. We climbed to the rock above and found it was a huge bowlder set well into the mountain. Against this was leaning a big stone slab about ten feet high. This left a space about two by six feet and open at each end. This cave was lined with leaves and fine rock and in the ndddle was one big egg. We thought it was not far from hatching by its glossy surface and the tenacity with which the mother stayed on her nest. It seemed to be the sound of the pistol that the condor feared. for that alone had made her leave her home. Twice one of the boys crossed above the nest, and we had been yelling back and forth, but she had paid no attention to that. Even in California where the sun is supposed to shine one gets a rainy spell that will knock out all his calculations for taking bird pictures. And a period of dark, rainy weather Regardless of the foggy, cloudy weather, we set out one morning about a week later. When we reached the foot of the hills, the fog was thicker than ever and had turned into a drizzling rain. But we shouldered our two cameras, blankets and other equipment that we had taken with the expectation of making a two days' trip. When we came to the brink of the canyon and descended a hundred feet along a steep trail thru the brush, worn out partly by the pouring waters of the recent rain, instead of an almost dry creek-bed that we had found on the first trip, we now had to wade and jump from rock to rock to eroas the swift current.
