halIjEtus albicilla. 75 



osprey, too, the claw of its outer toe is not reversible, so it could 

 not let go a living fish heavier than itself, which shows that 

 Nature never meant the sea eagle to gain its livelihood as a 

 fisher alone, although it has been seen to pounce upon a fish 

 near the surface, and being unable to raise it or let it go, both 

 drove ashore and were secured — both the winged yacht and its 

 floating anchor, against the law of Nature that any creature 

 should be drowned through inability to extricate the weapons 

 she had given it, which, like a white blackbird, must be the 

 exception, not the rule — as a too keen human angler has been 

 found drowned in a deep pool (into which he had fallen when 

 running along the bank), with his fishing-rod in his grasp and 

 the hook fixed to a salmon, like the claw of the erne in the 

 fish. I lately read in the papers that a man in Shetland saw one 

 feeding on a dead sheep ; on approaching he saw that the eagle 

 tried but could not fly away, as its talons were firmly locked in 

 the flesh. He tried to capture it, and a regular fight took place ; 

 it struck at him with beak and wings, tearing his hands and 

 clothes ; and he could only master it by falling on it and 

 crushing it, as the bird-stuffer did with the St Andrews one. 

 It measured seven feet across the wings. It was taken to 

 Lerwick and stuffed and sent to Frank Buckland. This robber 

 erne at least showed courage. Its talons are very strong, which 

 may have suggested the comparison to fat Falstaff — 



"When I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle's talon in the 

 waist ; I could have crept into an alderman's thumb-ring. " 



And its gourmandising nature may have induced Shakespeare 

 also to write his picture of Cleopatra's feasts — 



Mec. — "Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and but twelve 



persons there : Is this true ? 

 Eno. — "This was but as a fly to an eagle; we had much more monstrous 



matters of feasts." 



Although it could never occur to him to draw the comparison 

 between a beetle and an eagle, which he does in " Cymbeline" — 



" Often, to our comfort, shall we find 

 The sbarded beetle in a safer hold 

 Than is the full-winged eagle ; " 



because its unretractile talons were fixed in the carcase of a 

 sheep. Although fully as large and powerful as the golden 

 eagle, it wants the bold dash and alert motion of that bird, 

 being more allied to the vultures ; it is clumsier in action, and, 



