32 
BIRDS OF PREY. 
derers and vagabonds, they live in solitude, or only asso- 
ciate by pairs. Their parental feeling, indeed, com- 
monly vanishes with the growth of their offspring ; the 
young are driven forth with violence, and sometimes 
even savagely destroyed by these, their fierce, though 
natural protectors. Nature, apparently willing to dimin- 
ish or abridge the number of such cruel animals, has 
limited their annual progeny to a single brood, and their 
eggs, sometimes 2, never exceed the number of 4. 
For this purpose their nests are hidden in the clefts of 
inaccessible rocks, or fixed in the summits of the tallest 
trees ; and in the nocturnal kinds, in hollow trunks, or 
the ruins of desolate buildings which their discordant 
cries fill with sounds of horror ; the diurnal, also in- 
quiet, gloomy, and suspicious, utter often loud, squealing 
plaiiits, or, in the larger kinds, almost wolfish barkings, 
sounds consonant with their insatiable and sanguinary ap- 
petites : indeed, when their victims are sufficiently abund- 
ant, their sole drink is often blood, and like the votary 
of intemperance, water, to quench their thirst, is only a 
last resort. The more powerful birds of this order see 
with proverbial perfection in the day, and like most oth- 
ers have the eyes directed sideways. The nocturnal 
tribe pass away this period in sleep and indolence, only 
perceiving their prey distinctly in the twilight, and in 
these the eyes are placed in front. The structure of 
their digestive organs indicates the stern necessity of this 
life of rapine. Their prey is either torn to pieces or 
swallowed whole ; in either case the hair, bones and 
feathers, indigestible to them, are successively ejected 
from the stomach, by the mouth, in small balls or pellets. 
They eat largely when occasion offers, and can also fast 
for several days. In all this tribe the female is larger 
than the male, and this disparity sometimes amounts to a 
oa 
