VISION. 7 



" that both the eagle and other rapacious birds are 

 very sharp-sighted, yet do I not think that their eyes 

 can reach the object at such distances*." 



We may remark, however, with all deference to the 

 high authority of Willughby, that his scepticism is 

 here carried too far, as the accounts he objects to 

 are supported by undoubted facts. For though we 

 should reject the authority of Homer, who, as Pope 

 renders it, says 



Endued with sharpest eye, 



The sacred eagle, from his walks above, 

 Looks down and sees the distant thicket move, 

 Then stoops, and sousing on the quivering hare, 

 Snatches his lifef ; 



and though we should doubt the testimony of A urelius 

 Augustine, who says that " the eagle, when so high in 

 the air as to be invisible to us, can perceive a hare 

 lurking in an orchard, or a small fish swimming in 

 the water J;" yet we cannot refuse to admit as unques- 

 tionable facts the observations of such men as Wilson 

 and Vaillant. Speaking of the white-headed eagle 

 (Haliaetus leucocephalus, SAVIGNY), Wilson says, 

 " from the ethereal heights to which he soars, looking 

 abroad, at one glance, on an immeasurable expanse 

 of forests, fields, lakes, and ocean, deep below him;" 

 and of the osprey (Pandion haliaetus, SAVIGNY) he 

 says, " down rapid as an arrow from heaven he 

 descends, the roar of his wings reaching the ear as 

 he disappears in the deep." M. Vaillant again says 

 of his vociferous eagle (Haliaetus vocifer, SAVIGNY), 

 that, "like the osprey and the white-tailed eagle 

 (Haliaetus albicilla, SAVIGNY), it dives rapidly from 

 a great height in the air upon a fish which it 



* Ornithology, by Ray, p. 57. f Iliad, xvii. 



I Apud Aldrovand, Oruith. \. 15. Amer, Ornith. v. 



