172 ornithologist's text-book. 



minish the number of Eagles ; but as there is a 

 constant tendency in the Eagles to spread and ex- 

 tend their territory and their numbers, that ten- 

 dency instantly acts upon the withdrawal of the 

 restraint; so that when the Eagle becomes neces- 

 sary in order to maintain the balances of races, 

 and the perfection of the whole of Nature, she re- 

 turns by as unerring a law of Nature as that which 

 guides her to her prey. 



" Her strength of endurance also enables her to 

 keep her footing and preserve her existence, under 

 circumstances to which the powers and the life of 

 almost any other animal would be obliged to yield. 

 The same elastic ligament, which, of its own na- 

 ture, and without effort from the bird, compresses 

 her toes in clutching, enables her to cling to the 

 pinnacle of the rock, and to cling the more firmly 

 the ruder the blast. The claws are not used in 

 those cases, as that would injure their points and 

 unfit them for their proper functions ; but the pads 

 and tubercles hold on upon places where the foot 

 of all else would give way ; and the Eagle sits 

 with closed wings and close plumage, as if part of 

 the rock itself, while the wind roars and the snow 

 drives, tearing the bushes from their roots, send- 

 ing them rolling over the precipices, and literally 

 scourging the wilderness with ruin. The strength 

 of the hill ox, the fleetness of the mountain deer, 

 and the resources of the mountain traveller, are 

 often unavailing; and when the storm breaks, the 

 signal of the Raven and the Carrion Crow points 

 out the place of their bones; but the bones of the 

 Eagle are not thus given by nature to be tugged at 

 by ignoble birds. Queen of the tempest, she rides 

 as secure amid its fury, as when, on a cloudless and 

 breezeless day, she floats down the valley with easy 

 and almost motionless wing, 



