2SD NATURAL H18TUHY. 



not infrequently comes close to habitations for offal or bones, and behaves in a very Vulturine manner. 

 Captain Huttoii writes : " Marvellous, indeed, are the stories told, both by natives and Europeans, 

 of the destructive habits of this bird, and both accounts, I fully believe, have scarcely a grain of 

 truth in them : all I can positively say on the point, however, is that I have known the bird 

 well in its native haunts for thirty years and more, and never once, in all that time, have I seen 

 it stoop to anything but a dead carcase. As to carrying off hens, dogs, larnbs, or children, I say 

 the feat -would be utterly impossible, for the creature does not possess the strongly-curved, sharp- 

 pointed claws of the Eagle, but the far straighter and perfectly blunt talons of the Vulture. Day 

 after day I have seen them sweeping by along the face of the hill, like the wandering Albatross at 

 sea, and, like it, ever in search of offal, which, when found, is not swept off the ground after the 

 manner of the Kite, but the bird alights upon it, as it would upon, a Bullock, and then, if the 

 morsel is worth having, devours it on the spot, and again launches itself \ipon its wide-spread wings 

 and sails away as before. There is no sudden stooping upon a living prey, as with the Falcon 

 tribe, but its habits and manners in this respect are, as far as I have seen, entirely Yulturine." 



The Lammergeier measures about three feet and a half in length, and its outspread wings often 

 extend to as much as nine feet in expanse. A second species is found in Africa, the Southern 

 Lammergeier (Gypaetus ossifragus), which differs from the European one, in having the tarsus bare, 

 instead of being feathered to the toes. 



THE TRUE EAGLES (Aquila). 



In Austi-alia no true Eagle is found, but a very powerful bird called the WEDGE-TATLED EAGLE 

 (Uroaetus* audax^) inhabits that country, differing from all its more northern relations in its 



very long and wedge-shaped tail, which is like that of the 

 Lammergeier. 



The true Eagles have a very powerful bill, with a festoon 

 distinctly marked in the edge of the upper mandible, which is, 

 however, different from the toothed bill of the Falcons, to be 

 considered presently. They nearly all possess a large bony 

 EYE OF EAGLE, SHOWING CRYSTALLINE shelf over the eye, which may serve to protect that organ from 

 LENS. (After Yarren.) ^ e sun iight during some of the aerial excursions the bird 



makes. 



The orb of the eye in the Eagles is supported by a ring of bony plates, numbering fifteen in 

 the Golden Eagle. These bony plates are capable of slight motion xipon each other. The figure 

 represents the crystalline lens of the same bird, the lens being subject to great variety of form 

 in different birds. In the Eagle the proportion of the axis to the diameter of the lens is as 3 T *<j 

 to 5 T 7 ^ ; in the Eagle Owl, which seeks its prey at twilight, the relative proportions of the lens 

 are as 6 T 7 ^ to 7 T % ; and in the Swan, which has to select its food under water, the proportions of 

 the lens are as 3 to 3 T 8 Q. Birds have also the power of altering the degree of the convexity of the 

 cornea. With numerous modifications of form, aided by delicate muscular arrangement, birds appear 

 to have the power of obtaining such variable degrees of extent or intensity of vision as are most in 

 accordance with their peculiar habits and necessities. J 



In these birds is found a return of that difference in the size of the sexes which was so noticeable 

 in the Sparrow-Hawks, for in the Eagles the female is decidedly larger than the male. There are two 

 convenient groups into which the Eagles may be divided, according as they have feathered or un- 

 feathered legs. All the true Eagles belong to the first section, all the less noble and Serpent-eating 

 kinds to the latter section. Although they are birds of grand physique, it is a question whether Eagles 

 deserve the position they enjoy for nobility of disposition: they are rapacious it is true, but not alwnys 

 brave, for one Golden Eagle will give way to a Peregrine Falcon, while the grand-looking IMPERIAL 

 EAGLE (Aquila heliaca, see figure on p. 235) is said by a good observer in India, Mr. A. O. Hume, C.B., 

 to be no better than a great hulking Kite. He adds : "Much has been written about the daring and 

 fierceness of this Eagle. I can only say that in India (where possibly the climate is subversive of 

 * ovpa, a tail ; aero?, an Eagle. + Audax, bold. { Newton Ed., Yarrell's " British Birds," i., p. 19. 



