ORDER ACCIPITRES. 227 



female lays there annually two or three eggs. It is pretended i hat 

 this barbarous mother occasionally kills the most voracious of 

 her young : but, if scarcely ever more than two eaglets are found, 

 and frequently but one, it is no doubt owing to the infecundity 

 of the eggs. The philosophers of final causes find in this a 

 wise provision of nature against the multiplication of destructive 

 beings, sis if the occasional infecundity of eggs was not a com- 

 mon phenomenon among all the volatile tribes. Why produce 

 these destructive beings at all, or if a certain number only are 

 necessary, why not limit the production of germs ? Why 

 produce any thing superfluous ? These are questions the phi- 

 losophers of final causes cannot answer. But we can : — such 

 is the order of nature. 



If it is true that the young eagles are chased from the nest 

 as soon as they are able to fly, this habit would appear derived 

 from the difficulty with which birds of prey procure subsistence. 

 Yet it is well known, that when a mountaineer has discovered 

 an eagle's nest, he can supply himself for some time with an 

 ample store of provision by substracting the game he finds 

 there during the absence of the old ones. It is even pretended, 

 that by tying down the young, he can prolong the period of his 

 robberies. These facts but ill agree with the precipitate expul- 

 sion, or rather with the above solution of it. Smith, too, in his 

 history of Kerry, relates a story as little in accordance with it. 

 A poor inhabitant of that county provided for his family abun- 

 dantly for an entire year, by taking from an eagle's nest the food 

 brought there by the parents : and that he might prolong 

 their attentions beyond the ordinary period, he contented him- 

 self with clipping the wings of the eaglets, to retard their volun- 

 tary departure. 



Perhaps the circumstance of which we are speaking is as 

 philosophically explained by our own poet Thomson, of whose 

 eloquent lines on this subject we shall avail ourselves : — 



High from the summit of a craggy cliff. 

 Hung o'er the deep, such as amazing' frowns 



