AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 



203 



A poor humble creature, uaknown to many even by name 

 — one who had had but few friends, nor wished for more — 

 contented to work all day, here — there — anywhere — that 

 she might be able to support her aged mother and her little 

 child — and who on sabbath took her seat in an obscure 

 pew, set apart for paupers in the kirk! 



" ' Fall back, and give her fresh air, said the old minis- 

 ter of the parish; and the circle of close faces widened 

 round her, lying as in death. ' Gie me the bonny bit bairn 

 into my arms,' cried first one mother, and then another, 

 and it was tenderly handed round the circle of kisses, 

 many of the snooded maidens bathing its face in tears. 

 ' There's no a single scratch about the puir innocent, for 

 the Eagle, you see, maun, hae stuck its talons into the 

 long claes and the shawl. Blin! blin! maun they be who 

 see not the finger o' God in this thing!' 



"Hannah started up from her swoon, looking wildly 

 round, and cried, '0! the bird, the bird! — the Eagle, the 

 Eagle! The Eagle has carried ofi'my bonny wee Walter — 

 is there nane to pursue?' A neighbour put her baby into 

 her breast, — and shutting her eyes, and smiting her fore- 

 head, the sorely bewildered creature said in a low voice, 

 ' Am I wauken — tell me if I'm wauken, or if a' this be 

 the wark o' a fever, and the delirium o' a dream.?' " 



The strength of wing and muscular vigour of the Eagle 

 are truly astonishing. The flesh has not, as some have 

 alleged, any offensive smell or taste, but it resembles a 

 bundle of cords, and cannot be eaten. Some notion of its 

 power may be formed from the statement of Ramond, when 

 he had ascended Mont Perdu, the loftiest of the Pj^renees, 

 and nearly three miles above the level of the sea. He had 

 for a considerable distance bid adieu to every living thing, 

 animal or vegetable; but right over the summit there was 

 a Golden Eagle far above him, dashing rapidly to wind- 

 ward against a strong gale, and apparently in her element 

 and at her ease. 



In the regions which she inhabits, the Golden Eagle, 

 like the lion, owns no superior but man, and she owns 

 him as such only on account of his intellectual resources. 

 When taken ever so young, there is no very well authen- 

 ticated account of the taming of an Eagle. The wandering 

 hordes to the eastward of the Caspian sea, do, indeed, train 

 Eagles to hunt both game and wild beasts; and Marco 

 Polo, the father of modern travellers, who, in the early 

 part of the thirteenth century, spent six and twenty years 

 in a pilgrimage over the east, and revealed the wonders of 

 the whole, as far as Cathay or China itself, records the 

 Eagle hunts at the court of the great Khan of Tartary, as 

 among the greatest marvels with which he met. It is pro- 

 bable that the Eagle thus trained to falconry, may have 



been the imperial Eagle, which is much more common in 

 the south and east, and which, though a powerful bird, is 

 not quite so savage as the Golden Eagle. That the Eagle 

 was never used in European falconry, is certain. It is 

 invariably classed with the "ignoble falcons," or those 

 that keep as well as kill their prey. One bird is said to 

 give the Eagle more trouble than any other, and that is 

 the heron, rather a light and feeble bird. The heron gets 

 under the shelter of a stone, or the stump of a tree, where 

 neither the wing nor the talons of the Eagle can be effec- 

 tive; and from that position it twists round its long neck, 

 and bites and gnaws the leg of its enemy. Several years 

 ago, a heron was put into the cage of a powerful Eagle, at 

 the Duke of Athol's, at Blair. It immediately betook 

 itself to the shelter of a block of wood, which the Eagle 

 had for a perch, and began to nibble and bite; nor did the 

 Eagle vanquish it till after a contest of twenty-four hours. 

 It is not very often, however, that the Golden Eagle fre- 

 quents the haunts of the heron; her favourite ranges are 

 the open moors and uplands, where the prey can be seen 

 from a great distance, and there is little cover to shelter 

 it. In England they do not often come to the woods, 

 though they do so in the mountainous parts of France, 

 where the winter is proportionally more severe, and the 

 animals, upon which they prey at other times, are passing 

 the cold season dormant in their holes. 



AN EXPLANATION 



0/ the Technical Terms used hy Ornithologists, descriptive of particular 



parts. 



A — AuKicuLARs, — feathers which cover the ears. 



BE — The BASTARD wing, [alulia sjjuria, Lin.] three 

 or five quill-like feathers, placed at a small joint rising at 

 the middle part of the wing. 



