218 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



lived fifty years ; and Raczynski another, kept at the 

 court of Bavaria for forty years. 



" Eagles," says Pennant, " are remarkable for 

 their longevity, and for their power of sustaining a 

 long abstinence from food. A golden engle, which 

 has now been nine years in the possession of Owen 

 Holland, Esq., of Conway, lived thirty-two years 

 with the gentleman who made him a present of it ; 

 but what its age was when the latter received it 

 from Ireland is unknown. The same bird also fur- 

 nishes a proof of the truth of the other remark, 

 having once, through the neglect of servants, en- 

 dured hunger for twenty-one days, without any sus- 

 tenance whatsoever." 



The great age of the eagle is beautifully alluded 

 to in the Psalms, where if is said of the righteous 

 man that "his youth is renewed like the eagle's," a 

 passage which greatly exercised the ingenuity of 

 the ancient fathers and other commentators in fan- 

 cying the manner in which the eagle did renew its 

 youth. The greater number of them, and among 

 these, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. Gregory, Ni- 

 cephorus, and Rabbi David, say that when the bird 

 begins to feel advancing age from the weight of its 

 feathers and the dimness of its eyes, it betakes it- 

 self to a fountain of water, and, plunging therein, has 

 its whole frame renovated. St. Damian adds, that 

 before immersion, it so places itself in the focus 

 of the sun's rays (ad circulum solis) as to set its 

 wings on fire, and in this way to consume the old 

 feathers; proving pretty plainly that St. Damian 

 was not aware of the natural mode of birds renew- 

 ing their feathers by moulting. Rabbi David adds, 

 that when it delays the operation too long it has not 

 strength to rise from the water, and is frequently 

 drowned. 



St. Augustine says, that when the eagle becomes 

 very oldf the upper mandible of the beak grows so 

 Jong that the bird can no longer feed, in which case 



