1 74 FOKEST CREATUEES. 



merry humour and likes the fun of seeing the terror he 

 causes, as he races in his mirth round and round the 

 animal almost paralysed with fear. Or perhaps there 

 is somewhat of a Caligula in his nature, and he con- 

 siders that the only true enjoyment which is purchased 

 by the acute suffering of others. Be it as it may, he 

 will thus dally with a creature's anguish, and only after 

 having twenty times swooped down as if to seize it in 

 his talons, do so in reality. 



On the plain around Munich, and not far from the 

 city, a spectacle of this sort was observed some winters 

 ago. A hare, as he skipped over the broad snow-field, 

 was perceived by an eagle wheeling aloft. Down he 

 swooped just in front of puss, and circling round, was 

 in a second again before him. Turn which way his 

 victim might, he found himself always thus hemmed in. 

 Now the eagle would threaten him from one side, now 

 from another : and then would hover over or pounce 

 down upon him as if about to seize him by the neck. 

 But the eagle only does this when there is no oppor- 

 tunity for the animal to evade him ; when at any 

 moment that he chooses he may grasp and carry 

 him off. 



The capacity of the eagle for enduring hunger clearly 

 points to an occasionally recurring state of things which 

 is thus provided for. And they do in fact often expe- 

 rience what it is to want food. Gray, therefore, whether 



