THE EAGLE. 81 



him, the pan with the meat being between them. 

 In this situation Mr Bruce fired, and shot him 

 with the ball through the middle of his body, 

 about two inches below the wing, so that he lay 

 down upon the grass without a single flutter. 

 Upon laying hold of his monstrous carcass, Mr 

 Bruce was not a little surprised at seeing his 

 hands covered and tinged with yellow powder or 

 dust. Upon turning him upon his belly, and ex- 

 amining the feathers of his back, they produced 

 a brown dust, the colour of the feathers there. 

 This dust was not in small quantities ; for upon 

 striking his breast, the yellow powder flew in 

 fully greater quantity than from a hair-dresser's 

 powder puff. The feathers of the belly and 

 breast, which were of a gold colour, did not ap- 

 pear to have any thing extraordinary in their for- 

 mation ; but the large feathers in the shoulder and 

 wings seemed apparently to be fine tubes, which 

 upon pressure scattered this dust upon the finer 

 part of the feather, but this was brown, the 

 colour of the feathers of the back. Upon the 

 side of the wing, the ribs, or hard part of the 

 feather, seemed to be bare as if worn, or, in Mr 

 Bruce's opinion, were rather renewing themselves, 

 having before failed in their function. What is 

 the reason of this extraordinary provision of na- 

 ture, he does not pretend to determine. But 

 as it is an unusual one, it is probably meant, 

 he thinks, for a defence against the climate in 

 favour of those birds, which 'live in the almost 

 inaccessible heights of a country doomed even in 

 its lower pails to several months of excessive 

 VOL. rv. F 



