36 EAGLES TRAINED FOR HAWKING. 



in good health. The freshness and vigour which they 

 thus derive is alluded to in Henry IV. (Part I. Act iv. 

 Sc. i) :- 

 " Hotspur. Where is his son, 



The nimble-footed mad-cap Prince of Wales, 



And his comrades ? 



Vernon. All furnish'd, all in arms ; . . . 



Like eagles having lately bath'd." 



The larger birds of prey are no less fond of washing, 

 though they care so little for water to drink, that it has 

 been erroneously asserted that they never drink. " What 

 I observed," says the Abbe Spallanzani,* " is, that eagles, 

 when left even for several months without water, did not 

 seem to suffer the smallest inconvenience from the want of 

 it, but when they were supplied with water, they not only 

 got into the vessel and sprinkled their feathers like other 

 birds, but repeatedly dipped the beak, then raised the 

 head, in the manner of common fowls, and swallowed 

 what they had taken up. Hence it is evident that they 

 drink." 



In Persia, Tartary, India, and other parts of the East, 

 the eagle was formerly, and is still to a certain extent, 

 used for hunting down the larger birds and beasts. In 

 the thirteenth century, the Khan of Tartary kept upwards 

 of two hundred hawks and eagles, some of which had been 

 trained to catch wolves ; and such was the boldness and 



* " Dissertations,' vol. i. p. 173. 



