THE ORNITHOLOGICAL GUIDE. 121 



strength of pinion, and with what rapidity, yet with 

 what ease, she wheels sunward, till, far above the 

 summit of the mountain, she leans motionless like 

 a brown speck on the bosom of the sky ! From its 

 size, it must be twelve pounds weight at the least, 

 and yet it absolutely rises, and that rapidly, as if 

 it were of less specific gravity than the medium in 

 which it floats, rarefied as it is by a height of nearly 

 a mile. The muscular energy by which that is 

 effected, must be immense : to sustain itself without 

 motion of the wings is astonishing enough, but it 

 is nothing to a rapid motion upward, from no fulcrum 

 but the thin air. It is the Golden Eagle. For 

 many years she has had her eyrie in those cliffs. 

 She has laid the surrounding heaths and valleys 

 under contributions, for the support of those succes- 

 sive broods, for which, while they were young, she 

 was so attentive in rending the prey ; but which, 

 when they grew up, she drove far from her own 

 immediate haunt, to become the monarchs of other 

 mountains. 



" In symmetry, in strength, in the vigor of her 

 wing, the acuteness of her vision, and the terrible 

 clutch of her talons, the Golden Eagle is superior 

 to every other bird, and as her habitation is always 

 in those time-built palaces, the most lofty and 

 inaccessible precipices, there is sublimity in her 

 dwelling ; and though in reality a long-lived bird, 

 she has popularly gained a sort of immortality from 

 the durable nature of her abode. It appears to be 



