CHAPTER I. 



THE EAGLE. 



jjLL honour to the lords of earth ! 



If I commence this record of my adventures 

 as a sportsman with the history of the eagle, 

 it is not that I entertain the slightest respect 

 for this bird of prey, the type of brutal force, of rapacity, 

 of carnage, of selfishness. But simply because the eagle, 

 once the symbol of the imperial power of Rome, has 

 become, since the great war of American independence, 

 the heraldic emblem of the vast republic of the United 

 States. 



