40 THE HUMAN SIDE OF BIRDS 



"He clasps the craig with hooked hands; 

 Close to the sun in lonely lands, 

 Ring'd with the azure world, he stands. 

 The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; 

 He watches from his mountain walls. 

 And like a thunderbolt he falls." 



From his mountain beat he surveys the surround- 

 ing country far and wide. As the Bible says, "he 

 sees afar off" — nothing escapes his eye. At certain 

 intervals he sweeps noiselessly along as his glances 

 search the distant hills and valleys below for prey. 

 Suddenly, when he sees an animal below, he closes 

 his immense wings and descends to the earth with 

 a terrific thunder-like sound, his huge talons open 

 ready to grasp the hapless creature. Nothing is 

 safe from his terrible claws. Nothing is too large 

 or too small for him. His eerie on the high cliffs 

 tells its own tale of murder: around it is a veritable 

 boneyard which has accumulated during the young 

 eaglets' nursery days. 



The golden eagle is a very undesirable officer 

 in the vicinity where he is king. The enormous 

 amount of food his young consvmie, not to mention 

 himself, makes him a great enemy to all forms of 

 life. His eerie is very rarely accessible to man, as 

 it is usually placed at the highest point of a cliff, 

 or in the crown of a very tall tree, and oftentimes 



