THE EAGLE. 245 



Eagles cannot be tamed without great difficulty. Euro- 

 pean falconers stigmatised them as "ignoble" because they 

 could not train them to assist in field-sports like the hawks, 

 or " noble falcons." The Tartars, however, have been able 

 to effect this ; they take the Eagles young, and train them to 

 assist in the chase of hares, foxes, antelopes, and even wolves. 

 Perhaps, however, the bird thus employed, which travellers 

 call an Eagle, is only a species of hawk, like the cherkh, 

 which is sirnilarly employed in Persia. A pamphlet was, 

 some years ago, published by Professor Reisner of Germany, 

 with the object of showing that Eagles might be employed to 

 direct balloons. He states the number of birds which would 

 be necessary, according to the dimensions of the machine, 

 and gives directions for the mode in which they should be 

 harnessed, trained, and guided. 



The following account of the Eagle which was in the Gar- 

 den of Plants, at Paris, in 1807, may be suitably introduced 

 in this place. " There has been for some time in the Garden 

 of Plants, an Eagle, which her Majesty the Empress sent 

 thither, and which is as much distinguished by his beauty as 

 by the silver ring which he carries in one of his talons. It 

 was originally domesticated with an English game-cock, which 

 has at last served him for food. It is not known whether the 

 death of the game-cock was produced by his own fierceness 

 by some movement of anger or merely by the hunger of 

 the Eagle. The following is the history of the Eagle since 

 he lost his liberty. He was taken in the forest of Fontain- 

 bleu, in a trap set for foxes, the spring of which broke his 

 claw. His cure was tedious, and attended by a painful opera- 

 tion, which was borne by the Eagle with a patience not often 

 exceeded in man. During the operation, his head only was 

 at liberty, and of this he did not avail himself to oppose the 

 dressing of the wound, from which several splinters were 

 taken, nor did he attempt to disturb the apparatus which the 

 fracture required. Swathed in a napkin, and laid % on one 

 side, he has passed the entire night upon straw without the 

 least motion. The next day, when all the bandages were 



