Premarital behaviour in the Condor Sarcoramphus gryphus L

As far as I know, little has been published and no thorough investigation has ever been made of the courting, mating, nesting, brooding and rearing of the Condor, though in some of the zoological gardens this largest and in many respects peculiar bird of prey sometimes most succesfully bred. In 1939, 1940 and 1942, a pair of Condors hatched in the gardens of the Royal Zoological Society “Natura Artis Magistra” in Amsterdam. They sat each time on one egg for 58 days alternately. In this way they brought up three young ones, the third of which, however, unfortunately lived only 12 days. It died 9 days after its mother’s death. Besides my preliminary notes in former years, annotations and protocolls were collected in 343 daily reports on this couple and its breeding, and also on the bodily growth and the maturing of the behaviour of their offspring. In this article only the premarital comportment with its interesting symbolic expression of tendencies and noteworthy interaction between a co-ordinating-regulating principle within the biological psyche and (remaining) vital functions will be described and discussed.