564 REPTILES AND BIRDS. 
Naumann positively contradicts this assertion. It is at all events a 
matter of certainty that the flight of this bird is very rapid. An Eagle 
has been noticed circling over a hare in a field, and hemming it in, so 
that the victim was unable to escape on either side, always finding 
its enemy in front. 
The Eagle builds its nest in the clefts of the most inaccessible 
rocks, or on their edge, that its brood may be safe from danger or 
surprise. This nest is nothing but a floor, made of sticks placed 
carelessly side by side, bound together with some pliable branches, 
and lined with leaves, reeds, and heather. However, its solidity is 
sufficient to resist for years the decay caused by time, and to bear 
Fig. 259.—Wing of an Eagle. 
the load of four or five birds, weighing combined from seventy to 
eighty pounds, with the provisions brought for their sustenance. 
Some eagles’ nests have an area of as much as five feet square. The 
number of eggs laid is generally two or three, rarely four. Incubation 
requires thirty days. 
Their young being very voracious, the parent birds are compelled 
to hunt with great assiduity. Nevertheless, should scarcity occur, the 
brood do not suffer in proportion, for Nature has endowed them with 
the faculty of supporting abstinence for many days. This peculiarity 
they possess in common with all birds of prey. Buffon mentions an 
Eagle which, having been taken in a trap, passed five weeks without 
anything to eat, and did not appear enfeebled until the last eight 
days. An English author states that for twenty-one days a tame Eagle 
was not fed, and that the bird appeared to have suffered little from 
its protracted fast. 
