72 BIRDS IN LEGEND 



feathers, or quills, are said to consume other quills that lie near 

 them. Between the eagle and dragon there is constant enmity, 

 the eagle seeking to kill it, and the dragon breaks all the 

 eagle's eggs it can find. 



If the Jewish eagles are as smart as that, my sympathies 

 are with the dragon ! 



The relations between Zeus, or Jupiter, and the eagle, 

 mostly reprehensible, belong to classic mythology; and 

 they have left little trace in folklore, which, be it re- 

 membered, takes account of living or supposed realities, 

 not of mythical creatures. The most notable bit, per- 

 haps, is the widely accepted notion that this bird is never 

 killed by lightning; is "secure from thunder and un- 

 harmed by Jove," as Dryden phrases it. Certain common 

 poetic allusions explain themselves, for instance, that in 

 The Myrmidons of ^Eschylus: 



So, in the Libyan fable it is told 

 That once an eagle, stricken with a dart, 

 Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft, 

 'With our own feathers, not by others' hands 

 'Are we now smitten/ 



These little narratives, which are certainly interesting 

 if true — as they are not — are good examples of the 

 failure to exercise what may be called the common-sense 

 of science. 



Extraordinary indeed are the foolish things that used 

 to be told of birds by men apparently wise and observant 

 in other, even kindred, matters. Isaak Walton, 40 for 

 example, so well informed as to fish, seemed to swallow 

 falsities about other animals as readily as did the 

 gudgeon Isaak's bait. He writes in one place, after 

 quoting some very mistaken remarks about grasshoppers, 



