LEGEND OF THE EAGLE 



AN old legend tells us that the eagle, the king of birds, 

 is the one creature on earth who is able to recover 

 departed youth; and the great age to which he is 

 known to live lends color to the story. 



It is related that when this bird feels that the season 

 of youth is passing by and when his young are still in the 

 nest, he leaves the aging earth and soars toward the sun, 

 the consumer of all that is harmful. Mounting upward even 

 to the third region of the air* — the region of meteors — ^he 

 circles and swings about under the great fiery ball in their 

 midst, turning every feather to its scorching rays, then, with 

 wings drawn back, like a meteor himself, he drops into some 

 cold spring or into the ocean wave, there to have the heat 

 driven inward by the soul-searching chill of its waters. Then 

 flying to his eyrie, he nestles among his warm fledglings 

 till, starting into perspiration, he throws off age with his 

 feathers. 



That his rejuvenescence may be complete, as his suste- 

 nance must be of youth, he makes prey of his young, feeding 

 on the nestlings that have warmed him. He is clothed anew 

 and youth is again his. 



