THE BIRD AND THE BALLOON.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1580, 11 March 1887, Page 3

THE BIRD AND THE BALLOON.

After my smoke I indulged in a siesta, for I had slept little the night before and the day was overpoweringly hot. I don't know how long I slept, but I awoke with a start and a sense of surprise, not remembering for a moment where I was. Then I rubbed my eyer, and shading them with my bands, looked up into the iky. " Hang it!" I thought, What can that speck

be? A cloud?" Hardly. But what ever it might be it grew bigger and came nearer as I looked. I took my glass and looked again. The speck was a bird—a very big bird, or at that distance, for it must have been miles away, I could not have seen it at all. I watched the creature with sleepy curiosity, speculating as to tie rate at which it might be travelling, and recalling the stories I had read of the rapid flight of vultures and falcons, and their wonderful powers of scent and vision, w'len it struck me that this particular bird I had in view seamed to be making straight for the balloon. From its great siz?, moreover, I took it to b<i a condor, the largest of known birds, a veritable monarch of the air, more than a match for buff-ilo or jiguar, strong enough to cirry off a man as easily as an eagle carries off a leveret. A single dash of its claws into the balloon would mean suiden collapse and swift destruction. The thought was app.il'ng. I watched the hu*e thing with intense antiety, hoping "gainst hope that it had some other object, and would give me a wide berth. Bnt when it got within a mile and still came on as straight as a die, I knew that I must prepare for a difficulty. I took up the repeating rifle, for which I had sent to England, resolving to fire the moment the bird came well witbin range and I could be sure of my aim. When the great bird was about five hundred yards off he pulled up, and, poising himself on his outstretched wings, which must have reached fully fourteen feet, seemed to be making a critical survey of the balloon and its occupant. It was evidently the first ornithological specimen of the sort he had seen, and he was probably thinking whether it was safe to attack, or good to eat. Then he wheeled slowly round, coming every time a little nearer, and I could now see, by the cartilaginous comb that crowned his head and the wattle which enveloped his neck, that be was a male. At length he appeared to have made up his mind for a closer inspection, and with extended neck made straight for the balloon. In doing this he exposed his breast, for which, kneeling in the car, and taking steady aim, I fired. The condor dropped like a atone; but only a few yards, and to rise again to the level of the balloon. On this I fired again—this time at the junction of the wing with the body. The shot was fatal—the wounded wing dropped useless by his side, and after a desperate ett'ort to recover itself, the bird fell sheer down, struck against a pinnacle of rock, and disappeared among the trees which grew at its foot. —The Phantom City : A Volcanic Romance, by Wm. Westall.