EAGLES AND ART. 271 



with bright unflinching eye, after thus breathing that deadly 

 gas for hours ! And now let us add, from the same source, 

 another sketch, that of the Old Eagle, illustrating this same 

 point. 



"It is supposed that Eagles live to a very great age, 

 some persons have ventured to say even a hundred years. 

 On this subject, I can only observe, that I once found one 

 of these birds, which, on being killed, proved to be a female, 

 and which, judging by its appearance, must have been very 

 old. Its tail and wing-feathers were so worn out, and of 

 such a rusty color, that I imagined the bird had lost the 

 power of moulting. The legs and feet were covered with 

 large warts, the claws and bill were much blunted, it could 

 scarcely fly more than a hundred yards at a time, and this it 

 did with a heaviness and unsteadiness of motion such as I 

 never witnessed in any other bird of the species. The body 

 was poor and very tough. The eye was the only part which 

 appeared to have sustained no injury. It remained spark- 

 ling and full of animation, and even after death seemed to 

 have lost little of its lustre. No wounds were perceivable 

 on its body." 



Think of the gem-like glittering of that tameless glance 

 beneath the deepening shadows of the gathered years ! it 

 seems as if the glorious bird would die into a diamond to 

 shine on, night-piercing and defiant there forever ! as if the 

 light of that fierce life the storms have fed, would remain a 

 thing imperishable within that eyelet-hole, although the skull 

 should fall away to dust the bloody beak leave but a hooked 

 line where it went out and plumes that have been ruffled by 

 the thunder, float away impalpable upon a breath of air ! 



What changes has not that century-piercing vision wit- 

 nessed? The young Eagle, in its brown plumage, sailed 

 above silent woods, along the valleys of our great rivers in 

 the West, and there was nothing to make it afraid in the 

 shades beneath, except the whistling arrow of the Red-man, 

 when it passed above his wigwam, or rustled, brushing by 



