450 AVES—EAGLE. 
The harpy is so bold, according to Hernandez, that it does not scruple to 
attack the most ferocious beasts, and even man himself; but this attribute 
is probably as much exaggerated as its docility, when he adds, that he may 
be tamed and trained to hawk as readily as the rest of the accipitrine tribe. 
He states also that it is quarrelsome, sullen, and fierce, and preys not merely 
upon birds, but upon hares, and other similar animals. Linnzus adds to this 
account, probatly on the report of the keepers of the Spanish Menagerie, 
that it is capable of splitting a man’s skull with a single blow of its beak. 
Mauduit states that he had been informed by travellers, that it commonly 
feeds upon the two species of sloth which are found in the forests of Guiana, 
and carries off in its talons fawns and other young quadrupeds. These 
details are confirmed by Sonnini, who describes it as living perfectly solitary 
in the depth and darkness of the thickest forests, where of course it is seldom 
disturbed by the prying eye of curiosity. He himself observed it perched on 
a lofty tree, on the banks of the Orassu, where it seemed altogether motion 
less, and uttered no cry. His shot having only broken his wing, he fastened 
it by one leg to his boat, in which position it remained for several days, 
displaying no symptoms of mischievousness, but constantly refusing all 
kinds of food. This was the specimen called by him aigle destructeur. 
These scattered notices comprise all that is known of its history in its 
natural state. In captivity there is little to distinguish its manners from 
those of the other birds of its tribe. An individual taken from the nest, 
in possession of the elder Jacquin, became so tame as to suffer its head to 
be handled and scratched ; but unfortunately this specimen was found dead 
on its passage to Europe, having fallen a victim, as was supposed, to the 
vengeance of the sailors, whose monkeys it had destroyed. These animals, 
in their gambols, unconsciously approached too near its cage, and were 
seized by its powerful talons; it devoured them with almost all their bones, 
but not without skinning them, an operation which it uniformly performed 
previously to consigning them to its maw. 
RH Bev BTL DAN SiEraA ew Gi Let 
Tue beautiful species which we are about to describe, measures about two 
feet in length, from the point of the beak to the extremity of the tail, and 
from four to five in the expanse of its wings. No other individual, except 
that which is now in the Zoological Society’s Collection, has, we believe 
ever been in Europe; and even in cabinets, the stuffed skin appears to be 
of considerable rarity. It was first made known to science by M. D’Azara, 
to whom we are indebted for the earliest descriptions of so many South 

1 Halietus aguia, TeMM. 
