340 On the Ornithology of Wilts [Falconide]. 
metry and strength of body, the boldness, the courage, the sagacity 
of this whole family? Who can withold admiration at their noble 
bearing, their velocity of flight, the keenness of their sight, the 
gracefulness of their evolutions in the air? But as I am not writing 
a panegyric on Falcons, but only a plain history of them, I will 
proceed at once to enumerate the species which have occurred in 
this county. 
“The White-tailed Eagle,” (Haliwetus albicilia.) First and 
foremost in the ranks of the Falconide stands the lordly Eagle, no 
less the king of birds, than the lion is allowed to rank monarch of 
quadrupeds: the strength and courage of this genus so commended 
it to the heathen poets, that they made it the attendant of Jupiter, 
and declared that alone of the feathered tribes it could brave the 
thunderbolt, or gaze with fixed eye at the sun’s dazzling orb; for 
the same reasons the Romans, Assyrians, and Persians adopted it 
as their standard in ancient times, and it forms the crest or emblem 
of monarchy in Russia, Prussia, Austria, France, and other empires 
of modern days. Its longevity too, (for it has been proved to live 
above a hundred years,) and its love of solitude, combine to give it 
dignity and majesty; so that in appearance and habits, as well as 
by general consent, it is allowed to be a “right royal bird.” In 
Great Britain the cliffs of Scotland and Ireland, and the wildest 
parts of our sea-coast are the abode of the Eagles; and there, on 
the most inaccessible rocks, and on the edges of the most dizzy 
precipices, they place their eyries, and from thence they sally forth 
in quest of prey, and goodly and ample and of great variety is the 
stock of game, in addition to an occasional lamb or fawn, with which 
they supply their young, as the rocks adjoining their nest have 
often testified, converted during the breeding season by these in- 
satiable marauders into a well-filled larder. 
Of the different species of Eagles, the ‘Golden’ one, (Aquila 
chrysaétos,) is generally considered the first, as it is the boldest and 
most active, as well as the largest; and I had hoped to have enu- 
merated it among the birds of Wilts, in consequence of a notice 
which appeared in the Berkshire Chronicle and the Zoologist, in 
January, 1847, to the effect that a fine specimen of this species had 
itis 0 ae 
