20 COMING OF THE NOBLE BIRDS. 



against, not only the feathered denizens of the rocks, 

 but the entire family of Falconidce. The garrulous 

 Yankee assured me that, in the days of his grandfather, 

 who had been a soldier in the armies of Washington, a 

 child, two years old, had been seized by an eagle in the 

 State of Connecticut, and had owed his salvation to the 

 great difficulty experienced by these birds in taking to 

 the wing from level ground. The father of the inno- 

 cent victim had slain the would-be ravisher with a stick. 



" Silence !" I exclaimed; " eagles can see and hear at 

 a very great distance." 



" Be not afraid," he replied, " I am keeping my eye 

 open ; and the moment a bird hovers in sight, I will be 

 as mute as death." 



Our loquacious narrator was about to resume his 

 maundering narrative, to the great displeasure of my two 

 friends and myself, when suddenly a shrill whistling was 

 heard on one of the cornices of the rock near which we 

 were hidden. 



I put my hand on the Yankee's mouth, and looking 

 up, I caught sight, on the edge of the crag, among some 

 faggots of wood, of a couple of eaglets, whose sharp cries 

 and fluttering wings announced the coming of one or 

 other of their parents, a black point in space, which 

 gradually grew larger and larger, and became clearly 

 defined against the azure of the heaven. In a few 

 seconds the eagle alighted as softly as possible on the 

 stony ridge nearest to his eaglets. He carried in his 

 talons a piece of raw flesh, which he hastened to offer to 

 his fledgelings, already covered with feathers, and very 

 bold. As I put forth my head to see more distinctly, 

 the female in her turn appeared, descried us, uttered a 



