TRAINING OF YOUNG BIRDS. 213 



if they make the attempt, their parents beat them with 

 their wings and tear them with their claws*. Be 

 this as it may, we are assured that eagles will feed 

 their young for a considerable period, if the latter are 

 disabled from flying by clipping their wings ; and it 

 is recorded that a countryman once obtained a com- 

 fortable subsistence for his family out of an eagle's 

 nest, by clipping the wings of the eaglets and tying 

 them so as to increase their cries, a plan which was 

 found to stimulate the exertions of the old birds in 

 bringing prey to the nest. It was of course neces- 

 sary for him to make his visits when the old birds 

 were absent, otherwise he might have been made to 

 pay dearly for his plunder. After instructing their 

 young in flying and hunting, the parent eagles, like 

 other birds of prey, drive them from their territory, 

 though not, we believe, as Aristotle says, from the 

 nest. Bonnet says, "The eagle instructs its young in 

 flying, but does not, like the stork, prolong their 

 education, for it mercilessly drives them away before 

 they are thoroughly taught and forces them to pro- 

 vide for their own wants* All the tyrants of the air 

 act in the same manner, yet though this seems cruel 

 and shocking, when we consider their close relation- 

 ship, it takes a different aspect when we consider the 

 kind of life led by those voracious birds. Destined 

 to subsist by rapine and carnage, they would soon 

 produce a famine amongst their race did many of 

 them dwell in the same district. For which reason, 

 they hasten to drive away their young at a certain 

 age from their boundaries, and then if a scarcity of 

 provision occur, the male and female put one another 

 to death t" The poet Thomson, without going 

 quite so far as this, gives a very good account of the 

 circumstance. 



* Hist. Anim. ix. 32. 

 '_f Contempl. de la Nature, vi. note 5. 



