SPOKT IN NOKTH AMERICA. 



THE BALD-HEADED AMERICAN EAGLE. 



If I open these sporting sketches with the eagle, it 

 is not, by anj^ means, because I hokl that bird of prey 

 in an}' honour. He is tlie type of brute strength, 

 rapacity, carnage, and selfishness. Surely this is 

 wliy, ever since the declaration of American inde- 

 pendence, the eagle has become the heraldic emblem 

 of the vast republic of the United States. 



The great Franklin himself deplored the choice of 

 las countrymen, as the following words will serve to 

 show : — 



"For my part" (he wrote in 1783), " I wish the 

 bald eagle had not been chosen as the represen- 

 tative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral 

 character ; he does not get his living honestly. You 

 may have seen him perched on some dead tree, 

 where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the 

 labours of the fishing-hawk : and when that diligent 



