INHABITANTS OF THE AIR.

§ 1. RAPTORES. Diurnal Birds of Prey.

THE GOLDEN EAGLE. (Aquila chrysaelos.)
"But who the various nations can declare,
That plough with busy wing the peopled air?
These cleave the crumbling bark for insect food,
Those dip the crooked beak in kindred blood :
Some haunt the rushy moor, the lonely woods;
Some bathe their silver plumage in the floods;
Some fly to man, his household gods implore,
And gather round his hospitable door,

Wait the known call, and find protection there
From all the lesser tyrants of the air.

The tawny Eagle seats his callow brood

High on the cliff, and feasts his young with blood."

BARBAULD.

THE Golden Eagle is the largest and the most powerful of all those birds that have received the name of Eagle.

M

It weighs above twelve pounds. Its length, from the point of the beak to the end of the tail, is about three feet nine inches; the breadth, when the wings are extended, is eight spans. The beak is horny, crooked, and very strong. The feathers of the neck are of a rusty colour, and the rest nearly black with lighter spots. The feet are feathered down to the claws, which have a wonderful grasp; the leg is yellowish, and the four talons are crooked and strong. As in all birds of prey, the female is the larger, and more powerful.

Eagles are remarkable for their longevity, and their faculty of sustaining a long abstinence from food. Of all birds the Eagle flies highest; and from thence the ancients have given it the epithet of the bird of heaven.

"Bird of the broad and sweeping wing,

Thy home is high in heaven,

Where wide the storms their banners fling,
And the tempest's clouds are driven.
Thy throne is on the mountain top,
Thy fields the boundless air ;
And hoary peaks, that proudly prop
The skies, thy dwellings are.'

This formidable bird may be considered among its own species what the lion is among quadrupeds; and in many respects they have a strong similitude to each other. Solitary, like the lion, he keeps the wilds to himself alone; it is as extraordinary to see two pairs of Eagles in the same mountain, as two lions in the same plain.

The Eagle is found in Great Britain and Ireland, in Germany, and nearly all parts of Europe. It is carnivorous, and, when unable to obtain the flesh of larger animals, feeds on serpents and lizards. The story of the Eagle, brought to the ground after a severe conflict with a cat, which it had seized and taken up into the air with its talons, is very remarkable; Mr. Barlow, who was an eye-witness of the fact, made a drawing of it, which he afterwards engraved. Two instances are said to have occurred in Scotland, of the Eagle having flown

away with infants to its nest: but in both cases it is added that the children were recovered, without being materially injured. This bird has been often tamed, but in this situation it still preserves an innate love of liberty. The nest of the Eagle is composed of strong sticks, covered with rushes, and generally built on the point of an inaccessible rock, whence it darts upon its prey with the rapidity of lightning. The period of incubation is said to be thirty days; and when the young are hatched, both the male and female exert all their industry to provide for their wants. In the county of Kerry, a peasant is said once to have formed the resolution of plundering an Eagle's nest, built upon a small island in the beautiful lake of Killarney. He accordingly swam to the island while the parents were away; and, after robbing the nest of the young, was preparing to swim back, with the Eaglets tied in a string; but while he was yet up to the chin in the water, the old Eagles returned, and, missing their family, fell upon the invader with such fury, that, in spite of all his resistance, they dispatched him with their beaks and talons.

THIS bird, known also as the White-tailed Eagle, from the inside feathers of its tail being white, differs from the golden eagle in the greater length of its beak, in its sluggish and cowardly habits, and in its coarser taste. It is a native of Great Britain, where it inhabits the high rocks and cliffs that overhang the sea, and whence it pounces on the birds, fish, or seals that it can procure for its prey. It is much smaller than the golden eagle, seldom exceeding twenty-eight inches in length; and in young birds the tail feathers are brown.

(Haliatus leucocephalus.)

THIS bird is about three feet long, and seven feet broad, measuring to the tips of the extended wings. The bill resembles that of the golden eagle, and from the chin hang some small hairy feathers like a beard. As it is found alike in the frigid and the torrid zone, it is provided for enduring rapid changes of temperament, and its whole body is clothed under the feathers with a kind of down, white and soft like that of the swan. This bird builds its nest on some romantic cliff by the sea-shore, or on the bank of some river or lake, and feeds almost entirely upon fish.

It is generally regarded by the Anglo-Americans with peculiar respect, as the chosen emblem of their native land. The great cataract of Niagara is mentioned as one of its favourite places of resort, not merely as a fishing station, where it is enabled to satiate its hunger upon its most congenial food, but also in consequence of the vast quantity of four-footed beasts, which, unwarily venturing