30 
THE IMPERIAL EAGLE. 
the services of the Eagle, for its weight is so great that it could not be conveyed to and from 
the field of action without considerable inconvenience. In more modern times the Gfolden 
Eagle has been successfully trained to catch game. A gentleman in Huntingdonshire suc- 
ceeded in taming a Golden Eagle, which he taught to chase hares and rabbits ; and several 
other examples are on record. 
Owing to the expanse of the wings and the great power of the muscles, the flight of this 
bird is peculiarly bold, striking, and graceful. It sweeps through the air in a succession of 
spiral curves, rising with every spire, and making no perceptible motion with its wings, until 
it has attained an altitude at which it is hardly visible. From that post of vantage the Eagle 
marks the ground below, and sweeps down with lightning rapidity upon bird or beast that 
may happen to take its fancy. It is not, however, so active at rising from the ground as 
might be imagined, and can be disabled by a comparatively slight injury on the wing. One 
of these birds, that was detected by a young shepherd boy in the act of devouring some dead 
sheep, was disabled by a pebble hurled at it from a sling, and was at last ignominiously stoned 
to death. 
When gorged with food the Eagle dislikes the exertion of flying, and generally runs for- 
ward a few paces before taking to flight. The Scotch shepherds have discovered this pro- 
pensity, and have invented a very ingenious trap, which is made so as to take advantage of 
this habit. 
A circular inclosure is built of stone, about four feet in height, without any roof, and 
with a small door on one of its sides. A dead sheep is then thrown into the centre of the 
inclosure, and a noose adjusted round the door. The Eagle soon discerns the sheep, and after 
making a few circles in the air, alights upon the dead animal, and feeds to his heart’s content. 
After eating until he can eat no more, he thinks of moving, but as he does not choose to take 
the trouble of flying perpendicularly in so narrow a space, he prefers to walk out through the 
door, and is straightway strangled by the ready noose. 
The Eagle is supposed to be a very long-lived bird, and is thought to compass a century of 
existence when it is living wild and unrestrained in its native land. Even in captivity it has 
been been known to attain a good old age, one of these birds which lived at Vienna being 
rather more than a hundred years old when it died. 
So splendid and suggestive a bird as the Eagle could not escape the notice of any human 
inhabitant of the same land, and we accordingly find that in all nations, even the most civilized 
of the present day, an almost superstitious regard has attached itself to this bird. The Eagles 
of ancient Rome and of modern monarchies and empires are familiar to all, and it is hardly 
possible to pay a higher compliment to a poet or a warrior than to liken him to the royal Eagle. 
This genus, which includes the Golden Eagle, is almost peculiar to the Old World, where 
about seventeen species are known, America having none exclusively its own ; the single 
species found here being identical with the European. The American bird varies somewhat 
from the latter, being darker in plumage, and it is rather larger. 
Hr. Brewer says it breeds in the mountainous portions of Maine, Hew Hampshire, and 
Vermont. Mr. Ridgeway found it common in the great Basin of the West, where the miners 
call it Mountain Eagle. 
The Imperial Eagle is an inhabitant of Asia and Southern Europe, and bears a rather 
close resemblance to the golden Eagle, from which bird, however, it may be readily distin- 
guished by several notable peculiarities. 
The head and neck of this species are covered with lancet-shaped feathers of a deep fawn 
color, each feather being edged with brown. The back and the whole of the upper parts are 
black-brown, deeper on the back, and warming towards a chestnut tint on the shoulders. 
Several of the scapularies are pure white, and the tail is ash-colored, bordered and tipped 
with black. The cere and legs are yellow. The surest mark by which the Imperial may be 
distinguished from the golden Eagle, is the white patch on the scapularies. This is most dis- 
tinct in the adult bird ; for in the plumage of the young, the scapulary feathers are only 
tipped with white, instead of being wholly of that hue. 
