44 TALKS ABOUT BIRDS 



well known that the great Benjamin Franklin 

 said he did not think that the eagle should be 

 taken as the emblem of the United States, 

 because he was such a dishonest bird. But 

 he is not worse than many other eagles ; in 

 our poet Spenser's works there is a fine passage 

 describing how an eagle swoops down and 

 snatches away prey even from the fierce 

 goshawk, and falconers in India well know 

 that the wokhab, or tawny eagle, is one of the 

 worst enemies of their trained hawks, and is 

 always likely to chase these birds, so that 

 they are often driven away and lost. Even 

 if the hawk is not carrying any game, it is 

 wearing the " jesses " or leg-straps, and the 

 eagle, seeing these trailing behind, naturally 

 thinks the hawk has got something which can 

 be taken from it. 



One does not expect sober creatures like 

 the duck tribe to have wits enough to take 

 advantage of other people's work ; but they 

 do it, and the wild swans when they are feed- 

 ing are often surrounded by a crowd of ducks, 

 who will snatch a share of whatever weeds 

 the big birds can reach and pull up from the 

 bottom with their long necks. I have never 



