94 AQUILA CHRYSAETUS. 



hen under my arm, and my gini on my shoulder, pro- 

 ceeded to the farther brow of the hill. There I fast- 

 ened the bird to the turf by means of the peg, left her 

 the barley, put a double charge of buck-shot into the 

 gun, and shut myself up in the pit. Before I had been 

 there an hour, the rain had made its way through the 

 roof, the newspapers had ceased to amuse, and I had 

 fallen into a sort of slumber, from which I was startled 

 by a shrill scream. My first motion was to peep through 

 the hole, when I beheld an eagle perched on the back 

 of the hen, which crouched close to the ground in ter- 

 ror ; my second was to raise to my shoulder the but of 

 my gun, of which the muzzle lay in the aperture of the 

 hut ; and, at the moment when the eagle was in the 

 act of raising his head, as if to inflict a blow upon his 

 unresisting victim, I fired, and received a severe contu- 

 sion on the cheek, the gun having been overcharged. 

 Impatient to know the result, I raised the roof on my 

 back, forced myself through it, and, running up to the 

 place, found the eagle quite dead ; the whole shot ha- 

 ving entered its side. So, this is all, thought I ; — an 

 eagle is nothing wonderful after all. I remember feel- 

 ing precisely in the same manner after shooting my 

 first deer. There is more pleasure in compassing than 

 in obtaining many objects, and were it otherwise, many 

 objects would be left unattained. I threw the eagle 

 upon my back, brought a leg on each side of my neck, 

 tied the feet before, put the hen, which had been but 

 slightly injured by the grasp of the tyrant, under one 

 arm, the gun under another, and thus accoutred, soon 

 made my appearance on the brow of the hill. As I 

 descended, the people came out to see what I had got ; 



