348 [HABITS OF BIRDS/ 1 



lived fifty years * ; and Raczynski another, kept at 

 the court of Bavaria for forty years f. 



" Eagles,'' says Pennant, " are remarkable for 

 their longevity, and for their power of sustaining 1 a 

 long abstinence from food. A golden eagle, which 

 has now been nine years in the possession of Owen 

 Holland, esq. of Conway, lived thirty-two years 

 with the gentleman who made him a present of it; 

 but what its age was, when the latter received it 

 from Ireland, is unknown. The same bird also fur- 

 nishes a proof of the truth of the other remark, 

 having once, through the neglect of servants, en- 

 dured hunger for twenty-one days, without any sus- 

 tenance whatsoever J." 



The great age of the eagle is beautifully alluded to 

 in the Psalms, where it is said of the righteous man, 

 that his " youth is renewed like the eagle's ," a pas- 

 sage which greatly exercised the ingenuity of the 

 ancient fathers and other commentators in fancying 

 the manner in which the eagle did renew its youth. 

 The greater number of them, and among these, St. 

 Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. Gregory, Nicephorus, and 

 Rabbi David, say that when the bird begins to 

 feel advancing age from the weight of its feathers 

 and the dimness of its eyes, it betakes itself to 

 a fountain of water, and plunging therein, has 

 its whole frame renovated. St. Damian adds, that 

 before immersion, it so places itself in the focus of 

 the sun's rays (ad circulum soils) as to set its wings 

 on fire, and in this way to consume the old fea- 

 thers || ; proving pretty plainly that St. Damian was 

 not aware of the natural mode of birds renewing 



* Hist. Avium. f Hist. Nat. Poloniae. 



% Brit. Zool. i. 123, 8vo. edit. 



Psal. ciii. 5, almost uniformly misquoted cii. in books. 

 (I Epist. ii. 18, 19, apud Physicae Curiosae, p. 1118. 



