JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



23 



Israel from afar "as swift as the eagle 

 flieth." "Our persecutions are swifter 

 than the eagles of the heaven," com- 

 plained the prophet Jeremiah. "As 

 the eagle that suoopeth on tlie prey," is 

 the way in which Job describes the swift 

 flight of the years. Anyone who has 

 seen the swift downward rush of a bird 

 of prey, may well understand the force 

 and beauty of this figure. 



In the same book of Job there is a 

 very accurate picture of the nesting 

 habits of the eagle and of its method of 

 watching for its prey fiom a distance. 

 "Doth the eagle mount up at thy com- 

 mand and make her nest on high? She 

 dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon 

 the crag of the rock, and the strong 

 place. From thence she seeketh her 

 prey, and her eyes behold afar off." 

 How could far-sighted, sharp-eyed 

 watchfulness be more vividly pictured ! 



"They shall mount up on wings as 

 eagles," is the strong language in which 

 the clear-visioned Isaiah describes the 

 experience of those wlio renew their 

 strength by a life of service and of 

 faith. We have all known men, un- 

 happily too rare, whose lives have 

 approached, in beauty and in power, 

 the upward, soaring flight of the eagle. 

 Very interesting passages may also be 

 found in our Scriptures in regard to our 

 largest crows, the ravens. These figure 

 in the strange story of Elijah, as God's 

 messengers to bring food to the hungry 

 prophet. Fleeing from the wrath of 

 King Ahab and the still fiercer anger of 

 his wife, Jezebel, he took refuge in a 

 rocky ravine near the brook Cherith, a 

 small stream whose waters did not fail 

 during the first few months of the threat- 

 ened drouth, and here in the very home 

 of the ravens, he became their guest : 



"And the ravens brought him bread and 

 flesh in the morning, and bread and 

 flesh in the evening : and he drank of 

 the brook." 



The Wady Kelt, the supposed scene 

 of Elijah's strange experience of being 

 fed by the ravens, is thus described by 

 Dr. Thomson. "It is a narrow, pro- 

 found gorge, overhung by tremendous 

 cliffs, absolutely iu)passible, in whose 

 numerous recesses and dark caverns, 

 the prophet could have been mQst effectu- 

 ally concealed. I have pnssed up and 

 down the south side of it by night, and 

 looked into its fearful chasm with awe : 

 it then appenrs simply bottomless. On 

 another occasion the appearance of a 

 pair of ravens, black and glossy, sailing 

 leisurely down the chasm, brought viv- 

 idly to mind the circumstances of the 

 biblical incident, and I was quite ready 

 to recognize them as lineal descendants 

 of the birds that were commanded by 

 the Lord to feed the prophet." It has 

 indeed been claimed by some writers 

 that the Hebrew word for ravens in this 

 passage may be taken as the name of a 

 tribe of Arabs; but the same word cer- 

 certainly means ravens elsewhere, as 

 for example, in the case of the raven 

 sent forth from the ark, and in a story 

 so strongly marked by admitted miracles 

 one miracle more, even less wonderful 

 than the others, need not give us any 

 additional ditliculty. The story is too 

 strange and beautiful not to be true. 

 Shakespeaie makes Lavinia in Titus 

 Andronicus use these words : 



'•Some say that ravens foster forlorn children, 

 The whilst their own birds famish in their nests." 



It would be interesting to know if this 

 saying has any relation to the biblical 

 story. Within a lew days I have heard 

 on most excellent authority a story of a 



