EAGLE. | NATURAL HISTORY. 97 
springing water, and then she flieth up into the air as far 
as she may, till she be full hot by heat of the air and by 
travail of flight, and so then by heat the pores be opened, 
and the feathers chafed, and she falleth suddenly into the 
well, and there the feathers be changed, and the dimness of 
her eyes is wiped away and purged, and she taketh again 
her might and strength. Also, when the Eagle ageth, the 
bill waxeth so hard and so crooked, that unneath he may 
take his meat. And against this disadvantage he findeth a 
remedy; for he seeketh a stone, against the which he 
smiteth and beateth strongly his bill, and cutteth off the 
charge of the bill, and receiveth meat and might and 
strength, and so becometh young again. The gentle falcon 
or other such fowls unneath take preys on that day that 
they hear the Eagle; and that perchance cometh of great 
dread. And that Eagle that taketh her prey on the water 
hath one foot close and whole, as the foot of a gander, and 
therewith she ruleth herself in the water, when she cometh 
down because of her prey. And her other foot is a cloven 
foot, with full sharp claws, with the which she taketh her 
prey. And the Eagle’s feathers have a privy fretting virtue; 
tor the Eagle’s feathers done and set among feathers of 
wings of other birds corrumpeth and fretteth them; as 
strings made of wolf’s guts done and put in a lute or in 
an harp among strings made of sheep’s guts do destroy and 
fret and corrump the strings made of sheep’s guts, if it so 
be that they be set among them. Also she 1s right cruel 
against her own birds, for, to teach and to compel them to 
take prey of other birds, she beateth and woundeth them 
with her bill. Bartholomew {Berthelet), bk. xii. § 1. 
Wuerever an Eagle sees from on high a serpent, he 
attacks it with great clamour, and tears it with his claws, 
and after taking out the deadly venom from its entrails, 
he devours it, and the strength of the venom which was 
in it, being cooked by the heat of the Eagle, is extin- 
guished. And by this experiment he is either made sad, or 
else he glories in it. There is in the North a large Eagle 
which always lays two eggs; and it catches a hare or a 
fox, and carefully flays off its skin, in which it wraps its 
eggs, and puts them in the warmth of the sun, and so 
leaves them and does not sit, but waits until they are 
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