Rare Egg

Last month the only female California condor in captivity, and one of the very few condors now alive anywhere, stretched her broad black wings to their loft. utmost and otherwise behaved proudly. She had laid an egg.

Dr. William M. Mann, director of National Zoological Park at Washington, was almost as proud. Long has he tried to hatch condors, the giant American vultures, in his aviary. But his only female sometimes breaks her eggs; sometimes they have been sterile.

Last week's egg, pale green and about 4 in. long, lay in a special incubator while Dr. Mann hoped. Soon, forth should come a white-downed condor chick.

Carrion-feeding condors, sailing at extraordinary heights above the coast ranges of California, were once a common sight. They have been exterminated partly because of their proclivity for occasionally preying upon livestock, but mostly in the course of man's attempt to rid himself of wolves and foxes. These animals have learned to avoid poisoned meat, but the condors, eaters of carrion, swoop and gobble it up.

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