148 The Home of the Harpy-Eagle. [March, — 
and the exuberant fertility of its lower valleys is only equaled 
by the coast regions of the Sunda islands. Life seems intensified 
here. The mightiest trees and the strongest animals, as well as - 
the sweetest fruits and most brilliant birds, are found together in 
this garden of the Hesperides, which (from all but a political 
standpoint) would appear, even to a patriotic Yankee, as superior 
to the finest portions of the United States as the hill counties of 
Southern Tennessee are superior in beauty and fertility to the 
most favored districts of Labrador. 
Between the two main forks of the Rio Verde, and within a 
circuit of fifty English miles, the naturalist may find from sixty 
to seventy-five different species of palm trees, wild growing © 
oranges, figs and almonds, four varieties of the Musa paradisiaca; — 
the Adansonia and the dragon-tree, with their gigantic trunks, — 
the most gorgeous butterflies, the largest reptiles and Carnivora — 
of the New World, including the Boa imperator and the jaguar, 
and the strongest if not the largest of all American birds, for the 
forests of Southern Mexico are the favorite home of the Harpy- — 
Eagle, the king bird of our western continent. a 
š i Pee A Se les 
aE SSDI iy Ne Hire ee ee eng ge PRE ag sea A a arn NCE eee O ORE AE EE NEEE eee ae ME eT flat ee ae eae, O ce ie re 
Even animals of a wide latitudinal distribution show an elective 
affinity for some special country which may have been their 
_ “centre of creation,” and has always remained their favorite abode, “ 
where they will survive after their species has become extinct in — 
other lands, and which may, therefore, be called their home far 
excellence. The tiger is thus at home in the Sunderbunds of the 
Ganges Delta, the bustard (Otis tarda) on the plains of Southern 
Russia, the flying squirrel in the Southern Alleghanies, and the 
prairie dog in North-western Texas, near the head waters of the Red i 
River. The harpy-eagle (Harpyia destructor) has been shot in 
the mountains of South-western Bolivia, in the Mornes du Diable 
of St. Domingo and in the valleys of Southern California; but & 
neighboring crags, which he is ready to rob of its eaglets or larg? 
white eggs for a couple of reals. From the projecting rocks of 
the lower Sierra, on any bright morning of the year, one may 5 
_ the hovering form of the destructor suspended in the clear sky 
or wheeling in ascending circles over the misty ocean of foliage 
