51 HISTORY OF 



peopled countries, and breed among the loftiest cliffs. They 

 choose those places which are remotest from man, upon whose 

 possessions they but seldom make their depredations, being con 

 tented rather to follow the wild game in the forest, than to risk 

 their safety, to satisfy their hunger. 



This fierce animal may be considered among birds, as the lion 

 among quadrupeds ; and in many respects they have a strong 

 similitude to each other. They are both possessed of force, and 

 an empire over their fellows of the forest. Equally magnani- 

 mous, they disdain smaller plunder ; and only pursue animal 

 worthy the conquest. It is not till after having been long pro- 

 voked, by the cries of the rook or the magpie, that this generous 

 bird thinks fit to punish them with death : the eagle also dis- 

 dains to share the plunder of another bird ; and will take up with 

 no other prey but that which he has acquired by his own pur- 

 suits. How hungry soever he may be, he never stoops to car- 

 rion ; and when satiated, he never retiwns to the same carcase, 

 but leaves it for other animals, more rapacious and less delicate 

 than he. Solitary, like the lion, he keeps the desert to himself 

 alone ; it is as extraordinary to see two pair of eagles in the same 

 mountain, as two lions in the same forest. They keep separate, 

 to find a more ample supply ; and consider the quantity of their 

 game as the best proof of their dominion. Nor does the simili- 

 tude of these animals stop here : they have both sparkling eyes, 

 and nearly of the same colour ; their claws are of the same form, 

 their breath equally strong, and their cry equally loud and terri- 

 fying. Bred both for war, they are enemies of all society : alike 

 fierce, proud, and incapable of being easily tamed. It requires 

 great patience and much art to tame an eagle ; and even though 

 taken young, and brought under by long assiduity, yet still it is 

 a dangerous domestic, and often turns its force against its master. 



When brought into the field for the purposes of fowling, the 

 falconer is never sure of its attachment : that innate pride, and 

 love of liberty, still prompt it to regain its native solitudes ; and 

 the moment the falconer sees it, when let loose, first stoop to- 

 wards the ground, and then rise perpendicularly into the clouds, 

 he gives up all his former labour for lost ; quite sure of never 

 beholding his late prisoner more. Sometimes, however, they 

 are brought to have an attachment for their feeder ; they are 

 then highly serviceable, and liberally provide for his pleasures 



