THE EAGLE. 95 



from his hand. At length, after having lived about ten or 

 twelve years in this way, it was killed by a powerful and 

 ferocious mastiff. Nobody saw the battle, but it must have 

 been long and bravely contested, for the dog, though victorious, 

 was so severely wounded that it died almost immediately 

 afterwards. 



The weight of a large Eagle is about twelve pounds, though 

 some (as the Bird of Washington) weigh fourteen pounds and 

 a half, rather more than an average-sized Goose. But in order 

 to transport this weight with their extraordinary occasional 

 speed of 140 miles or more per hour, which it has been proved 

 these birds can accomplish, there is a prodigious spread of 

 wing, from seven to upwards of ten feet from tip to tip, in 

 addition to a muscular power almost incredible. 



An Eagle has been known to strike and kill its prey with 

 a stroke of its pinions before it touched them with its claws. 

 Many people have, however, doubted whether they have 

 sufficient strength to carry off children and lambs ; and if such 

 belief rested only on one or two instances, it might be reason- 

 ably questioned ; but so many well-authenticated cases have 

 been mentioned as having occurred in places widely distant, 

 that we do not see how the fact can be denied. 



Bishop Heber, in his travels in India, passed through a 

 mountainous district where sad complaints were made of their 

 carrying off infant children; and we remember some years 

 ago, in the Alps, that on a high-pointed pinnacle of inaccessible 

 rock, jutting out from a peak of snow near the summit of the 

 Jungfrau, one of the highest of the Alpine range of moun- 

 tains, there might be seen the tattered remains of the clothing 

 of a poor child, who had been carried up by a Laemmergeyer, 

 or Bearded Vulture, from a valley below, in spite of the 

 shouts of some peasants who saw the bird pounce upon its 

 prize. It is called the Bearded Vulture from the tufts of 

 bristles on each cheek, as represented in the figure at p. 27. 



A more fortunate fate awaited a child in the Isle of Skye, 

 in Scotland, where a woman having left it in a field for a 

 short time, an Eagle carried it off in his talons across a lake, 



