158 PEOSE HALIEIJTIOS. 



dangling by their tails in a bunch, which she picked 

 from the keeper's hand with a toss, and forthwith began 

 coquettishly to dissect. Here the greater owl was heard 

 fitfully complaining in lamentable voice from a high cleft 

 in the rock, — 



Culminibus ferali carmine bubo, 

 Ssepe queri et longas in fletum duoere .voces. 



Here, too, unawed by a sense of decorum at the presence 

 of his betters (and louder of tongue than any of his far 

 bigger brethren the bustard, harrier, or peregrine hawk), 

 screamed almost unintermittiiigly the noisy kestrel ; — 

 scoldiag lustily till his turn came round, and continuing 

 his vituperative discord so long as there remained any 

 meat or mice to gobble. It was striking to see the 

 jealous stir and movement of all the birds as the feeding 

 pole went round the enceinte from eyrie to eyrie with 

 fresh relays of liver and lights : the greater of these 

 olcDvol, however, generally showed much less impatience 

 than the smaller; and when they had once distiuctly 

 uttered a note of complaint at any very flagrant instance 

 of the violated rights of precedency, each would wait in 

 dignified silence and composure for the result, and then 

 do ample justice with beak and talons to whatever was 

 offiered them for dinner. The raw rations of buffalo- 

 beef, served without stint, seemed to give very general 

 satisfaction to all the inmates of the cave, with two 

 pointed and painful exceptions, who evidently cotdd not 

 forget they were in gaol, and seemed to have given up all 

 hope of accommodating themselves to their adverse lot ; 

 one of these was the noble eagle, the other the voracious 

 vulture. 



Broken- winged, broken-hearted eagles are by no means 

 such unfrequent appendages to the suburban domains 

 of Italian ' HoHnesses,' and ' Eminences,' and ' Excel- 

 lencies;' of 'most illustrious {illiterate) Dukes,' and 



