260 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS. 



" Now is the moment to witness the display of the Eagle's 

 powers. He glides through the air like a falling star, and, 

 like a flash of lightning, comes upon the timorous quarry, 

 which now, in agony and despair, seeks, by various manoeu- 

 vres to elude the grasp of his cruel talons. It mounts, doubles, 

 and willingly would plunge into the stream, were it not pre- 

 vented by the Eagle, which, long possessed of the knowledge 

 that by such a stratagem the swan might escape him, forces 

 it to remain in the air by attempting to strike it with his tal- 

 ons from beneath. The hope' of escape is soon given up by 

 the swan. It has already become much weakened, and its 

 strength fails at the sight of the courage and swiftness of its 

 antagonist. Its last gasp is about to escape, when the fero- 

 cious Eagle strikes with his talons the under side of its wing, 

 and with unresisted power forces the bird to fall in a slanting 

 direction upon the nearest shore." 



The female that has watched from her perch all the vicis- 

 situdes of this fierce, swift struggle with a full assurance of 

 the result, now sails at her ease to join the conqueror in a 

 bloody feast. Every one will remember, too, Wilson's fine 

 description of the manner in which this selfish but dashing 

 oppressor robs the fish-hawk of its hard-earned spoils. 



The Golden Eagle is more common in the mountainous 

 districts of Europe and Great Britain than anywhere in the 

 New "World ; while the White-headed Eagle, which is un- 

 known abroad, may be said to be peculiar to this continent. 

 The Golden Eagle is the bird of poetry, since it is from its 

 sublime haunts and majestic bearing that the numberless im- 

 ages and associations are derived in which the whole family 

 have been idealized through the literature of the old coun- 

 tries. 



It is peculiarly from its habits of lofty flight, and perching 

 among the cloud-piercing pinnacles of mountain-chains, where 

 the fiercest tempests rage, amidst the drifted whirling glooms 

 of snow and sleet, that Eagles have become in poetry the 

 symbol of that tumultuous energy and storm-guiding prowess 



