24 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST 



White-Tailed Sea Eagle, Eing-Tailed Sea Eagle, and Grey- 

 Backed Sea Eagle, and of Vultures, Hawks, Owls, and Night- 

 Jars there are nearly 70 species known, so it will be seen that 

 rapacious birds muster as strong in that ancient and interesting 

 land, as rapacious beasts do; and some of the birds, beasts, and 

 plants of Southern India are of course met with in Ceylon. 



Another fine bird of this sub-family is the Vulturine Eagle of South 

 Africa, (Pterocetus Vulturinus), but the Harpy or Imperial Eagle 

 ©f Mexico and South America, ( Thrascetus Harpyia), is perhaps 

 the largest and most powerful bird of all the Eagles, and when 

 TTOunded will fight like a Turk in a corner. Some years ago one 

 was shot in South America and considered dead, the natives pulled 

 out the feathers and even the down, (which they use in dressing 

 wounds), and in this state the naked bird was thrown into the 

 canoe; but all at once it sprang at the white man of the party, and 

 wounded him so severely with its talons, that it took three natives 

 to take it off, and the unfortunate man was placed thoroughly hors 

 de combat. 



Only last year at Furstenwald, province of Brandenburg, an Aquila 

 Imperialis attacked and killed a large watch-dog belonging to a 

 farmer, tearing all the flesh from its back; the Eagle was afterwards 

 shot, and measured 7 feet in extent of wings; it had on its left foot 

 a ring with the date 1827 thereon, and the name of a place in Upper 

 Hungary, near the Northern Carpathian Mountains. 



This year an American Harpy Eagle was shot by a settler in the 

 Southern States of America, an<l when he went to secure it, the 

 attack it made on him was so furious, that lie had to retire to dress 

 Ills wounds, and go home for assistance, the bird receiving a charge 

 of small shot before they could capture it, even in its wounded state. 

 It was after all carried home apparently not much the worse for the 

 two shots it received. 



In Ohio country, America, last January, an Eagle attacked a lad 

 working in the fields; they fought for some time, until he managed 

 to close with it, and grasping it by the throat, held on till life was 

 extinct. From the bill to the end of the tail this Eagle measured 

 4 feot, and would therefore be fully 7 feet in extent of wings. After 

 the encounter the lad had to hi conveyed to the local hospital. 



In iSIay last, a large grey Eagle in Pekin, Illinois, swooped down 

 on a little child, and was rising in the air with it, when a fanner 

 coming along killed the bird and saved the child; this Eagle measured 

 8 feet from tip to tip of the wings. 



Eagles are known to live to a great age, and one recently died in 

 Vienna which had beer kept in confinement 114 years: its age was 

 supposed to be 120, but they have been proved to live much longer 

 than this. Another handsome Eagle is the Brazilian one, Morphuus 

 Uruhitrvga, and like the Harpy it is also met with in Guiana. 

 (To be Continued,) 



