THE GOLDEN EAGLE. 177 



asserting that Sir Humphry ^'does not shine as an 

 ornithologist." Had Poietes not absolutely beheld what 

 he describes he could not have told of it ; for it is one 

 of those things which it would never enter ^our heads to 

 invent. And he was right ; it is an extraordinary sight, 

 though wayward Christopher chooses to talk sneeringly 

 of the man's astonished utterance. Whether, however, 

 it was to obtain his prey that the eagle thus fell, I 

 am not so sure. Indeed I rather doubt it ; for I agree 

 with Christopher in his assertion that the swoop of 

 the bird upon his booty is quite a different movement 

 to this. 



No two men can well be more unlike in style than 

 Sir Humphry Davy and Christopher North. In their 

 descriptions there is the same difference as would be in 

 a sunlit hill-side painted by truthful and poetic Con- 

 stable, or as we should behold it reflected back from 

 the poetic but fanciful mind of Turner. 



Delio-htful as it is to allow ourselves for a while to 

 be borne away by Christopher North's description and 

 hyperbole, he is not absolutely infallible " as an orni- 

 thologist" either. He speaks in his "Second Canticle" 

 of " the imps," " the eaglets," " the young ones," " the 

 bursting of the shells," as though it were the commoner 

 occurrence for there to be several eaglets in a nest. 

 This is not the case. There is rarely more than one. 

 Two or three eggs are laid, but two, at most, are hatched. 



N 



