STRANGE BIRDS AND THEIR WAYS. 265 



cruise about in the air, preparing for emigration to the 

 South. When all is ready, they depart suddenly in well- 

 ordered ranks ; but as these quickly rise to the highest re- 

 gions of air, they are soon lost to sight. 



13. In uninterrupted flight, and sometimes in flocks of 

 two or three thousand, these Europe-sick birds direct their 

 course to the Egyptian coast. Here is the stork's second 

 home. Here, in the lowlands of the Delta, abounding in 

 frogs and snakes, he rules as a sort of pacha, as familiar 

 and sacred an object to the brown child of the fellah as to 

 the fair-haired boy of the dweller among the dikes ; and 

 verily the strange bird, with his gravity and seriousness, 

 accords well with that land of singularity and gloom. Yet 

 even beneath the palms and the pyramids he does not for- 

 get the German village and its lime-trees ; and when the 

 glowing heat of advancing summer shines down from the 

 brazen sky of Egypt, he returns again to his home amid 

 the reviving verdure of our northern climate. 



Hermann Masius 



THREE VIEWS OF THE EAGLE. 



1. The eagle is a well-known bird of prey, the larg- 

 est and most powerful of all the birds that fly except the 

 condor of the Andes. Its nests are usually built in the 

 top of a lofty tree, in the midst of an inaccessible swamp 

 or on the summit of some rocky peak. Its favorite 

 home is on the high cliffs which border the ocean, or ex- 

 tend along the rapids of a river. From its lofty eyrie it 

 watches life below, and majestically sails out into the upper 

 air. With the keenest vision, it sees the small birds and 

 animals afar off, and, pouncing down with a dread swoop, it 

 seizes them in its terrible talons and bears them away to its 



