330 EAGLES 



approaching danger. But if they should be 

 hungry, and you should happen to have shot 

 something that attracts their attention ; or if, 

 at your feet almost, they should espy a favourite 

 bird or animal, they will on occasion come 

 straight down and, catching the coveted morsel 

 in a powerful talon, get them gone before the 

 astonished onlooker has fully grasped the signi- 

 ficance of the rushing sudden swoop. Such of 

 my readers as have had the patience to peruse 

 the preceding chapters will already have noted 

 two examples of this peculiarity observed by me 

 in the larger raptorial species, and, although 

 I do not remember to have read similar experi- 

 ences recorded in the works of other hunters, 

 the propensity referred to can be by no means an 

 uncommon one. 



Eagles are, of course, soulless, cruel creatures, 

 but I never kill one if I can possibly avoid it, 

 first of all because they are such invaluable 

 scavengers, and, secondly, because my admiration 

 for their grand, wild, expansive existences is so 

 real and deep-seated that I would not willingly 

 curtail them by so much as an instant. Who 

 among those who are compelled to make their 

 way about the wilds of Africa on foot has not, 

 as the burning afternoon wore on, and, weary, 

 travel-stained, and athirst he has wondered 

 if the long day's march would never end, 

 glanced wistfully upward into the blue vault and 

 followed with envious eyes the easy, graceful, 

 effortless flight of one or other of the great African 

 eagles sailing majestically in vast circles without 



