60 AUDUBON THE NATURALIST. 



a range of high cliffs. Audubon felt assured, by 

 certain indications, that the bird frequented that 

 spot. Seated about a hundred yards from the 

 foot of the rock, he eagerly awaited its appear- 

 ance as it came to visit the nest with food for its 

 young. He was warned of its approach by the 

 loud hissing of the eaglets, which crawled to the 

 extremity of the cavity to seize the prey — a fine 

 fish. Presently the female, always the larger 

 among rapacious birds, arrived, bearing also a 

 fish. "With more shrewd suspicion than her 

 mate, glaring with her keen eye around, she at 

 once perceived the nest had been discovered. 

 Immediately dropping her prey, with a loud 

 shriek she communicated the alarm, when both 

 birds soaring aloft, kept up a growling to intim- 

 idate the intruders from their suspected design. 

 Not until two years later was Audubon grat- 

 ified by the capture of this magnificent bird. 

 Considered by him the noblest of its kind, he 

 dignified it with the great name to which his 

 country owed her salvation, and which must be 

 imperishable therefore among her people. "Like 

 the eagle," he thought, " Washington was brave; 

 like it, he was the terror of his foes, and his fame 

 extending from pole to pole, resembled the ma- 

 jestic soarings of the mightiest of the feathered 

 tribe. America, proud of her Washington, has 

 also reason to be so of her Great Eagle." The 



