THE EAGLE'S HABITAT. 57 



progenitor, the ape ? seeks to replace the cholera and the 

 pestilence by the most terrific engines of destruction ! 



The birds inhabiting the inhospitable region of the snows 

 are more numerous than the mammals. Let us briefly refer 

 to a few of the more important 



THE EAGLE AND THE WREN. 



In speaking of the eagle, Tennyson's noble lines to that 

 " imperial bird " will occur to every reader, from the force and 

 clearness of the picture which they present : 



" He clasps the crag with hooked hands ; 

 Close to the sun in lonely lands, 

 Ringed with the azure world, he stands. 



" The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls ; 

 He watches from his mountain walls, 

 And like a thunderbolt he falls." 



The affection of the eagle for his " mountain walls " may 

 be easily understood. This giant bird, with his carnivorous 

 instincts, is endowed with a remarkable tenacity of life, 

 and can exist in habitats wholly inaccessible to man. But 

 it is strange that a bird, which is as common a type of 

 humility as the eagle is of ambition, and which we almost 

 always cite as a contrast to the eagle we mean, the delicate 

 little wren should also be found among the snow and ice, 

 the silence and solitude, of the loftiest mountain regions. 



To study the flight of the eagle, we should repair to 

 Alpine highlands. When he has reached a certain altitude 

 of the atmosphere, the royal bird descends obliquely, as 

 upon an inclined plane, with a rush and a din of wings, 



