WEDGE-TAILED EAGLE. 
17 
The Wedge-tailed Eagle {Aquila fucosa^ Plate I. fig, 2) 
is perhaps one of the fiercest of the family. In the 
journals of Australian travellers this species is often 
alluded to. James Backhouse^ gives an instance of a 
woman having been chased by one of these birds for some 
distance, and obliged to run to a house for shelter. He was 
told by the wife of a settler, that she one day was struck with 
the action of a horse in an enclosure, galloping rapidly back- 
wards and forwards-, chased by two eagles. The horse at 
length fell, when one of the birds pounced on its head ; she 
then called for the assistance of some men, who drove away 
the ferocious birds. In Yan Diemen'^s Land this species 
not unfrequently carries off living lambs, and is, in conse- 
quence of its ravages, much dreaded by the colonists. 
There are two fine eagles common on the shores of the 
Mediterranean, the Aquila fulva and the Aquila imperialisy 
both well known to the ancients. Striking figures of these 
birds are occasionally given on Greek coins, and seem to be 
evident studies from the living bird. It was on one of these 
eagles that the poet Campbell wrote such fine lines atOranf : — 
* Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies, p. 153. 
t *The Dead Eagle/ written at Oran. Poetical works of Thomas 
Campbell, p. 308. 
C 
