EAGLE. 



claws arc sharper at their points, and the bill is more 

 arcned at \he base. In fact, there is a great deal 

 of nicety in the adaptation of the weapons of these 

 birds to the nature of their prey, and the mode of 

 their catching 1 and killing; it ; but all the varieties 

 of this adaptation would require a very intimate know- 

 ledge of the habits of the birds more, indeed, than it 

 is possible to obtain, from the wild nature of the 

 general haunts of these birds, and the short time that 

 any one of them can be seen in a state of nature. 

 The wings of eagles are, generally speaking, very long, 

 though less so in proportion to the weight of the 

 birds than in some others of the order. They are 

 remarkably broad and firm. The fourth and fifth 

 quills are the longest ; and the third, second, and first 

 get gradually shorter, which gives roundness, but at 

 the same time firmness to the extremity of the wing. 

 The shafts and tubes of the quills, and even the webs 

 are much firmer than in any other birds, and this firm- 

 ness extends in a great measure to the whole of the 

 plumage, so that no force of the wind, or even any 

 ordinary contact with sprays and twigs, or even con- 

 flict on the ground with the more powerful prey, can 

 very much ruffle the plumage of an eagle. In the 

 species which fish, and which have to plunge into the 

 water in the seizing of their prey, and sometimes when 

 that prey is heavy, to struggle with it on the surface, 

 the plumage on the under part of the body, and the 

 under sides of the wings, is very close and compact, 

 bearing no inconsiderable resemblance to that of 

 water birds. 



The power of enduring hunger is as remarkable in 

 the eagles as any of their other powers, notwithstand- 

 ing the boldness with which they prey, and the 

 rapacity with which they feed. The one habit is as 

 necessary to them as the other ; for, with the excep- 

 tion of those which depend on the sea, which knows 

 no scarcity except when it is sealed up by the frost, 

 there are seasons at which all of them find but little 

 food on their pastures. Upon the mountain tops 

 there are few animals during the depth of the snowy 

 season, and of the few that are there, hardly any 

 come abroad. It is probable that, at those times, the 

 eagles doze in their eyries without any action, and 

 consequently with very little waste of the system ; 

 tor it does not appear that mountain eagles come far 

 down from their airy heights even at these times of 

 the year ; at the same time, the bones of a perished 

 eagle are rarely found when the season turne, and the 

 snow clears off. They appear, indeed, to be but little 

 migratory at any season. They choose their ground, 

 and, having once chosen it, they keep it ; nor does.it 

 appear that they are much in the habit of invading 

 the territories of each other. 



They all live in pairs, which are never at any great 

 distance from each other, though it is said that, when 

 one of the pair meets with any casualty, the other 

 one wanders off, never to return to the same locality, 

 though a second pair may take possession of the 

 deserted eyerie. The pairs inhabit more or less 

 wide of each other, according to the nature of the 

 pasture, but they are never very near neighbours ; 

 nor does it appear that they have any social instinct 

 save that which keeps the pair together, and it is 

 merely the instinct of continuing the race, and nothing 

 more. The attachment to the young, the industry of 

 the old birds in feeding them, and the determination 

 with which both defend them, are all very great ; but 

 their apparent paternal attachments and labours are 



nothing but results of the same lasting instinct, only as 

 long as the young are helpless, and not only ceasing, 

 but turning to the opposite propensities as soon as the 

 young have acquired sufficient wing and strength for 

 rinding their own food. There is a moral, or, at all 

 events, a physiological lesson, that may be drawn from 

 this. The storge in the human race is an animal 

 principle as well as it is in eagles ; and hence we 

 find it very strong in parents, who are, at the same 

 time, not only neglecting to take those steps which 

 would ensure the mental and moral worth, and con- 

 sequently future respectability of their children, but 

 following habitually those courses which tend, of 

 necessity, to the very opposite results. This is most 

 conspicuous on the part of ill-educated mothers, who 

 may be often seen pawing and fondling their children, 

 as a tigress paws and fondles her cubs, while she is 

 not only neglecting their rninds, but thwarting the 

 father in all his efforts to provide for them. We 

 mention the mother, because there is little or none of 

 this merely animal slorge in the other sex, as i? 

 proved by the total neglect of young children by the 

 males among savages. The moral of the whole is, 

 that the principle, or the instinct, does not carry the 

 human female to perfection, while it invariably does 

 the female eagle. She never slackens her attention 

 till her offspring are fit for the world, while, notwith- 

 standing the strength of the animal impulse, the 

 woman who acts upon impulse alone unfits her 

 offspring for the world by the whole tenor of her 

 conduct. The reader will see that out of this arises 

 a very powerful argument for the existence of mind, 

 and one equally powerful for the necessity of moral 

 as well as technical education. Such is one of the 

 lessons we may learn at the eyrie of the eagle. 



When the young eagles are driven off from the 

 parental eyrie, it is not known whether they are yet 

 in possession of the pairing instinct, or at what age 

 they pair. That most of them do pair before they 

 undergo their last change of plumage is highly 

 probable, and this is one of the reasons why one 

 species of eagle has in so many instances been 

 multiplied into two. Even now, it is by no means 

 made out how many of these differently coloured 

 easrles, which are met with in the same locality, are 

 of different species, and ho\r many are exactly the 

 same ; and very few years have elapsed since the 

 daughter of the golden eagle of our own country was 

 invariably set down in the books as a difterent 

 species from the mother. 



The systematic natural history of eagles is thus a 

 matter of great difficulty and much uncertainty ; and 

 when we attempt to get at their manners, so as to 

 classify them according to these, we are not in a 

 much more hopeful predicament. Every body knows 

 the name, and there arc many who have opportunities 

 of seeing the birds, not only stuffed in glass cases 

 but alive in cages ; but these convey very little infor- 

 mation on that part respecting which information is 

 the most desirable the manners of eagles in free 

 nature ; and he who could procure materials for one 

 year's history of a wild eagle would merit the thanks 

 of every lover of birds. 



It is generally understood that eagles live to a 

 very great age, Klein says to not less than four 

 hundred years, though, of course, nobody ever kept 

 a journal of the transactions of an eagle for anything 

 like that period. Instances are quoted, however, of 

 eagles having lived for long periods in a state of con- 



