64 BRITISH LAND BIRDS. 



that tract of country being well adapted to its 

 habits. The aspect of the land is desolate and 

 wild ; dreary, black morasses abound, precipitous 

 rocks, with peaks rising high aloft ; a shore full of 

 little bays and inlets ; lakes, studded with islets ; 

 a temperature as variable as the weather, which 

 is so rainy that the people are said to be aquatic, and 

 to catch cold whenever they come so far eastward as 

 to get dry ; and a soil continually torn and ploughed 

 up by rains and floods. Such is the country. 

 The results are a richness of vegetation and a 

 superabundance of animal life that must be seen 

 to be realized. Here the waters teem with fish, 

 and the land with all sorts of living creatures, to 

 which so moist a climate is suited. Salmon, trout, 

 herring, and cod abound ; and here the sea eagle 

 finds the richest harvest. 



This account of the king of birds cannot, per- 

 haps, be closed more appropriately than with that 

 life-like picture of the bird, which was given thou- 

 sands of years ago to the patriarch Job : 



" Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, 

 And make her nest on high ? 

 She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, 

 Upon the crag of the rock and the strong place. 

 From thence she seeketh her prey, 

 And her eyes behold afar off. 

 Her young ones, also, suck up blood, 

 And where the slain are, there is sho " 



