EAGLES AND ART. 
265 
petty torture ! But what wonder ! — Lion would turn tail 
upon an angry Hornet, and a Hector or an Ajax himself be 
routed by a hungry Flea beneath his armor ! With every 
other sin upon its head, the bird is not a coward — for the 
incident which Mr. Audubon gives farther in proof of this, 
is not, as we conceive, altogether a fair case in point. The 
liability to panic, when suddenly aroused by any new and 
extraordinary presentation, is a well-known weakness of the 
mere physical courage. 
He says, "When these birds are suddenly and unexpect- 
edly approached or surprised, they exhibit a great degree of 
cowardice. They rise at once and fly off very low in zig- 
zag lines to some distance, uttering a hissing noise, not at all 
like their usual disagreeable imitation of a laugh." 
This is not by any means our interpretation of this inci- 
dent. The zig-zag line in flying off, seems to us rather to 
express the instinctive caution of rapacious creatures, who, 
when aroused — perhaps from secure slumbers — see in the 
unusual object, of course, a formidable enemy, and with the 
prompt suggestiveness of that most alert of the instincts, dart 
hither and yon, to distract any murderous aim which may 
pursue it — while the hissing sound as they go off, is the 
earliest expression of angry defiance, the combative impulse 
of the Eaglet in the eyrie knew. It is rather a case of panic 
than of cowardice, and the history of many of the most fear- 
less warriors the world has known, will furnish similar in- 
stances I 
No, the White-headed Eagle is not a coward. The charge 
has as little base upon consistencies and the nature of things 
as a similar one so frequently urged against Napoleon^ — • 
though while the daring of the Eagle is physical, that of the 
Eagle-man is spiritual. 
Shelley, at all events, saw it to be sufiicient as an emblem 
of the exulting energies of Freedom. That Freedom he had 
watched with many yearnings grow apace in youthful lusti- 
hood, subjugating the savage wildernesses of the New World 
