AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
203 
A poor humble creature, unknown to many even by name 
— one who had had but few friends, nor wished for more — 
contented to work all day, here — there — anywhere — that 
she might be able to support her aged mother and her little 
child — and who on sabbath took her seat in an obscure 
pew, set apart for paupers in the kirk! 
‘“Fall back, and give her fresh air, said the old minis- 
ter of the parish; and the circle of close faces widened 
round her, lying as in death. ‘ Gie me the bonny bit bairn 
into my arms,’ cried first one mother, and then another, 
and it was tenderly handed round the circle of kisses, 
many of the snooded maidens bathing its face in tears. 
‘ There’s no a single scratch about the puir innocent, for 
the Eagle, you see, maun, hae stuck its talons into the 
long claes and the shawl. Blin! blin! maun they be who 
see not the finger o’ God in this thing!’ 
“ Hannah started up from her swoon, looking wildly 
round, and cried, ‘ 0 ! the bird, the bird ! — the Eagle, the 
Eagle! The Eagle has carried off my bonny wee Walter — 
is there nane to pursue ?’ A neighbour put her baby into 
her breast, — and shutting her eyes, and smiting her fore- 
head, the sorely bewildered creature said in a low voice, 
‘ Am I wauken — O tell me if I’m wauken, or if a’ this be 
the wark o’ a fever, and the delirium o’ a dream V ” 
The strength of wing and muscular vigour of the Eagle 
are truly astonishing. The flesh has not, as some have 
alleged, any offensive smell or taste, but it resembles a 
bundle of cords, and cannot be eaten. Some notion of its 
power may be formed from the statement of Ramond, when 
he had ascended Mont Perdu, the loftiest of the Pyrenees, 
and nearly three miles above the level of the sea. He had 
for a considerable distance bid adieu to every living thing, 
animal or vegetable; but right over the summit there was 
a Golden Eagle far above him, dashing rapidly to wind- 
ward against a strong gale, and apparently in her element 
and at her ease. 
In the regions which she inhabits, the Golden Eagle, 
like the lion, owns no superior but man, and she owns 
him as such only on account of his intellectual resources. 
When taken ever so young, there is no very well authen- 
ticated account of the taming of an Eagle. The wandering 
hordes to the eastward of the Caspian sea, do, indeed, train 
Eagles to hunt both game and wild beasts; and Marco 
Polo, the father of modern travellers, who, in the early 
part of the thirteenth century, spent six and twenty years 
in a pilgrimage over the east, and revealed the wonders of 
the whole, as far as Cathay or China itself, records the 
Eagle hunts at the court of the great Khan of Tartary, as 
among the greatest marvels with which he met. It is pro- 
bable that the Eagle thus trained to falconry, may have 
been the imperial Eagle, which is much more common in 
the south and east, and which, though a powerful bird, is 
not quite so savage as the Golden Eagle. That the Eagle 
was never used in European falconry, is certain. It is 
invariably classed with the “ignoble falcons,” or those 
that keep as well as kill their prey. One bird is said to 
give the Eagle more trouble than any other, and that is 
the heron, rather a light and feeble bird. The heron gets 
under the shelter of a stone, or the stump of a tree, where 
neither the wing nor the talons of the Eagle can be effec- 
tive; and from that position it twists round its long neck, 
and bites and gnaws the leg of its enemy. Several years 
ago, a heron was put into the cage of a powerful Eagle, at 
the Duke of Athol’s, at Blair. It immediately betook 
itself to the shelter of a block of wood, which the Eagle 
had for a perch, and began to nibble and bite; nor did the 
Eagle vanquish it till after a contest of twenty-four hours. 
It is not very often, however, that the Golden Eagle fre- 
quents the haunts of the heron; her favourite ranges are 
the open moors and uplands, where the prey can be seen 
from a great distance, and there is little cover to shelter 
it. In England they do not often come to the woods, 
though they do so in the mountainous parts of France, 
where the winter is proportionally more severe, and the 
animals, upon which they prey at other times, are passing 
the cold season dormant in their holes. 
AN EXPLANATION 
Of the Technical Terms used hy Ornithologists, descriptive of particular 
parts. 
A — Auricttlars, — feathers which cover the ears. 
BB^-The bastard wing, [ alulia spuria, Lin.] three 
or five quill-like feathers, placed at a small joint rising at 
the middle part of the wing. 
