THE GOLDEN EAGLE. 135 



in order to maintain the balance of races, and the perfection 

 of the whole of nature, she returns by as unerring a law of 

 nature as that which guides her to her prey. 



Her strength of endurance also enables her to keep her 

 footing and preserve her existence, under circumstances to 

 which the powers and the life of almost any other animal 

 would be obliged to yield. The same elastic ligament which, 

 of its own nature, and without effort from the bird, com- 

 presses her toes in clutching, enables her to cling to the 

 pinnacle of the rock, and to cling the more firmly the ruder 

 the blast. The claws are not used in those cases, as that 

 would injure their points and unfit them for their proper 

 functions; but the pads and tubercles hold on upon places 

 where the foot of all else would give way; and the eagle sits 

 with closed wings and close plumage, as if part of the rock 

 itself, while the wind roars and the snow drives, tearing the 

 bushes from their roots, sending them rolling over the preci- 

 pices, and literally scourging the wilderness with ruin. The 

 strength of the hill ox, the fleetness of the mountain deer, 

 and the resources of the mountain traveller, are often 

 unavailing; and when the storm breaks, the signal of the 

 raven and the crow points out the place of their bones ; but 

 the bones of the eagle are not thus given by nature to be 

 tugged at by ignoble birds. Queen of the tempest, she rides 

 as secure amid its fury, as when, on a cloudless and breezeless 

 day, she floats down the valley with easy and almost motion- 

 less wing. 



Her endurance of hunger is as remarkable as her power in 

 the storm. In confinement she is said to have lived five 

 weeks without food; and yet, as she was then taken with 

 dead bait, to which she does not resort except in extremity, 

 she must have been hungry when taken ; so that, in her 

 native freedom, and with the cold dry wind around her, 

 which diminishes the waste of the animal system, she may 



