S3 



EAGLE LORE. 



CURIOUS STORIES OF THE OLD-TIME FAITH IN THE "KING OF THE FEATHERED 



TRIBES/' 



Birds were trusted, honored and made tal of the Eastern Empire. The site of 



the symbols of wisdom and power in the ancient Troy had been settled upon by 



old time, and they have not, at least in Constantine, and the engineers were en- 



their emblematical signification, been gaged in surveying the plan of the city, 



neglected in modern times. The eagle, when an eagle swooped down, seized the 



in particular, is exalted to a high and po- measuring line, flew away with it and 



tential distinction. On the banner of a dropped it at Byzantium. At any rate, 



hundred States he is displayed as a con- this was the story told to the soldiers and 



quering symbol and floats to-day over marines, in order to reconcile them to 



many a fair realm where Rome's imperial the change of plan, which they might 



standard never penetrated. otherwise have deemed an unfavorable 



The eagle has always been considered omen, though the splendid situation of 



a royal bird, and was a favorite with the the new capital and its long prosperity, 



poets. They called him king of the air prove how admirably sagacious was the 



and made him bear the thunderbolts of choice of its founder. 

 Jove. Euripides tells us that "the birds In the reign of Ancus Martius, King 



in general are the messengers of the gods, of Rome, a wealthy man, whose 



but the eagle is king, and interpreter of name was Tarquin, came to that city 



the great deity Jupiter." from one of the Etruscan States. Sitting 



The eagle figures in the early legends beside his wife in his chariot, as he ap- 

 of all people. When the ancient Aztecs, proached the gates of Rome, an eagle, it 

 the mound-builders of the Mississippi is said, plucked his cap from his head, 

 Valley, were moving southward under flew up in the air, and then, returning, 

 Mexi, their king, their god, Vitziputzli, placed it on his head again. Not a few 

 whose image was borne in a tabernacle suspect that the eagle was a tame one and 

 made of reeds and placed in the center of had been taught to perform this trick. If 

 the encampment whenever they halted, so, however, the apparent prodigy lost 

 directed them to settle where they should none of its effect in the popular belief, 

 find an eagle sitting on a fig-tree growing and Tarquin succeeded Ancus as King 

 out of a rock in a lake. After a series of of Rome. The eagle's head on the Ro- 

 wanderings and adventures that do not man sceptre, and later on its standard, 

 shrink from comparison with the most took its origin from this occurrence, 

 extravagant legends of the heroic ages of Plutarch, in his life of Theseus, relates 

 antiquity, they at last beheld perched on a that when Cymon was sent by the Athen- 

 shrub in the midst of the lake of Tenoch- ians to procure the bones of that hero, 

 titlan a royal eagle with a serpent in his who had long before been buried in Scy- 

 talons and his broad wings opened to the ros, to reinter them in his former capital, 

 rising sun. They hailed the auspicious he found great difficulty in ascertaining 

 omen and laid the foundation of their cap- the burial place of the ancient monarch, 

 ital by sinking piles into the shallows. While prosecuting his search, however, 

 This legend is commemorated by the he chanced to observe an eagle that had 

 device of the eagle and the cactus, which alighted on a small elevation and was try- 

 forms the arms of the modern Mexican ing with his beak and claws to break the 

 Republic. sod. Considering this a fortunate omen, 



A goose, it is said, saved Rome once they explored the place and discovered 



upon a time, but it was an eagle that di- the coffin of a man of extraordinary size, 



rected the selection of the ancient Byzan- with a lance of brass and a sword lying 



tium now Constantinople as the capn by it. These relics were conveyed to 



