272 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS. 



his still form, watching with sinew-strung bow amidst path- 

 less solitudes. When it had donned the blanched insignia 

 of Eagle-hood, and on steadier wings with swifter rushing 

 flight, spread its white tail and threw its white head far back 

 to utter resounding war-cries, then, with a shock, upsprung 

 in answer, the sharp ring of the rifle, and the hissing bullet 

 told that a more fearful foe had come ! And now it became 

 more wary and learned to fear for its wild empire ; for from 

 afar the gradual hum of an approaching civilization swelled 

 upon the ancient silence, until the belching roar of a Steam- 

 boat roused the startled echoes to reverberate on distant hills 

 as it passed up the quiet-gliding river ! Then in fire, in 

 thunder, and in smoke, the mysterious and terrible Advent 

 was announced to all the creatures of a wilderness which 

 was henceforth to own a new dominion, and with sullen 

 flappings the Eagle passed away towards the West, above 

 falling forests and uprising cities, to find the unviolated 

 solitudes. 



There again the same sights and sounds would follow it 

 apace, until at last the Steam Horse, snorting flames, came 

 tearing through the bowels of the old solemn hills, to fill the 

 wide valleys beyond with the iron clangor of its hurtling 

 speed, and then the astounded guardian of Earth's Primeval 

 sleep whirled away on hurried wings, deeper yet deeper to- 

 wards the West ! Still the inexorable pursuers came upon 

 its track, and still it passed on before, in shortening flights, 

 until at last its earliest foe no longer answered with the war- 

 whoop to its scream, and the forests seemed oppressed with 

 the silence of a pause, as if it but awaited, breathlessly, the 

 terrible coming ! 



And here the swift- winged bird first felt that it was weary ! 

 The steel-hinged pinions that had " sheared the subtile ay re" 

 so long, seemed to have lost their free, triumphing spring, 

 and it went heavily upon its way. Now its savage pride 

 becomes reconciled in a degree to the tumults and strange 

 sounds from which it fled at first in fiercest wrath, because 



