and lofty stars of heaven, deaf to all the discorc and despair of earth. Or religious still ever more than they-for those were mental, these spiritual-you beheld there men, whose heads before their time were becoming gray, meditating on their own souls, and in holy hope and humble trust in their Redeemer, if not yet prepared, perpetually preparing themselves for the world to come! SECOND CANTICLE. THE GOLDEN EAGLE leads the van of our Birds of Prey-and there she sits in her usual carriage when in a state of rest. Her hunger and her thirst have been appeased—her wings are folded up in a dignified tranquillity-her talons, grasping a leafless branch, are almost hidden by the feathers of her breast-her sleepless eye has lost something of its ferocity-and the Royal Bird is almost serene in her solitary state on the cliff. The gorcock unalarmed crows among the moors and mosses-the blackbird whistles in the birken shaw-and the cony erects his ears at the mouth of his burrow, and whisks away frolicsome among the whins or heather. To return to Birds in Cages;-they are, when well, uniformly as happy as the day is long. What else could oblige them, whether they will or no, to burst out into song-to hop about so pleased and pert-to play such fantastic tricks, like so many whirligigs-to sleep so soundly, and to awake into a small, shrill, compressed twitter cf joy at the dawn of light? So utterly mistaken was Sterne, and all the other sentimentalists, that his Starling, who he There is no index to the hour-neither light absurdly opined was wishing to get out, would nor shadow-no cloud. But from the comnot have stirred a peg had the door of his cage posed aspect of the Bird, we may suppose it to been flung wide open, but would have pecked be the hush of evening after a day of successlike a very game-cock at the hand inserted to ful foray. The imps in the eyrie have been give him his liberty. Depend upon it that fed, and their hungry cry will not be heard till Starling had not the slightest idea of what he the dawn. The mother has there taken up her was saying; and had he been up to the mean- watchful rest, till in darkness she may glide up ing of his words, would have been shocked at to her brood-the sire is somewhere sitting his ungrateful folly. Look at Canaries, and within her view among the rocks-a sentinel Chaffinches, and Bullfinches, and "the rest," "whose eye, and ear, and nostril are true, in exhow they amuse themselves for a while flitting about the room, and then, finding how dull a thing it is to be citizens of the world, bounce up to their cages, and shut the door from the inside, glad to be once more at home. Begin to whistle or sing yourself, and forthwith you Yet sometimes it chanceth that the yellow have a duet or a trio. We can imagine no lustre of her keen, wild, fierce eye is veiled, more perfectly tranquil and cheerful life than even in daylight, by the film of sleep. Perhaps that of a Goldfinch in a cage in spring, with sickness has been at the heart of the dejected his wife and his children. All his social af- bird, or fever wasted her wing. The sun may fections are cultivated to the utmost. He have smitten her, or the storm driven her possesses many accomplishments unknown to against a rock. Then hunger and thirsthis brethren among the trees;-he has never which, in pride of plumage she scorned, and known what it is to want a meal in times of which only made her fiercer on the edge of her the greatest scarcity; and he admires the unfed eyrie, as she whetted her beak on the beautiful frost-work on the windows, when flint-stone, and clutched the strong heatherthousands of his feathered friends are buried stalks in her talons, as if she were anticipating in the snow, or, what is almost as bad, baked prey-quell her courage, and in famine she up into pies, and devoured by a large supper-eyes afar off the fowls she is unable to pursue, party of both sexes, who fortify their flummery and with one stroke strike to earth. Her flight and flirtation by such viands, and, remorseless, is heavier and heavier each succeeding dayswallow dozens upon dozens of the warblers of the woods. quisite fineness of sense, to their trust, and on whom rarely, and as if by a miracle, can steal the adventurous shepherd or huntsman, tc wreak vengeance with his rifle on the spoiler of sheep-walk and forest-chase. snow, assailed and insulted by the meanest carrion; till a bullet whizzing through her heart, down she topples, and soon is despatch she ventures not to cross the great glens with or without lochs-but flaps her way from rock Ay, ay, Mr. Goldy! you are wondering what to rock, lower and lower down along the same we are now doing, and speculating upon the mountain-side-and finally, draw by her scribbler with arch eyes and elevated crest, as weakness into dangerous descent, he is dis if you would know the subject of his lucubra-covered at gray dawn far below the region of tions. What the wiser or better wouldst thou be of human knowledge? Sometimes that little heart of thine goes pit-a-pat, when a great ugly, staring contributor thrusts his inquisi-ed by blows from the rifle-butt, the shepherd tive nose within the wires-or when a strange cat glides round and round the room, fascinating thee with the glare of his fierce fixed eyes; but what is all that to the woes of an Editor?-own hand. Yes, sweet simpleton! do you not know that But behold the Golden Eagle, as she has we are the Editor of Blackwood's Magazine-pounced, and is exulting over her prey! With Christopher North! Yes, indeed, we are that her head drawn back between the crescent of very man that selfsame much-calumniated her uplifted wings, which she will not fold tili man-monster and Ogre. There, there!-perch on our shoulder, and let us laugh together at the whole world. stretching out his foe's carcass on the sward, eight feet from wing tip to wing tip, with leg thick as his own wrist, and foot broad as his that prey be devoured, eye glaring cruel joy, neck-plumage bristling, tail-feathers fan-spread, and talons driven through the victim's entrails and heart-there she is new-lighted on the ledge of a precipice, and fancy hears her yell and its echo. Beak and talons, all her life long, have had a stain of blood, for the murderess observes no Sabbath, and seldom dips them in loch or sea, except when dashing down suddenly among the terrified water-fowl from her watch-tower in the sky. The weekold fawn had left the doe's side but for a momentary race along the edge of the coppice; a rustle and a shadow-and the burden is borne off to the cliffs of Benevis. In an instant the small animal is dead-after a short exultation torn into pieces, and by eagles and eaglets devoured, its unswallowed or undigested bones mingle with those of many other creatures, encumbering the eyrie, and strewed around it over the bloody platform on which the young demons crawl forth to enjoy the sunshine. chapter might be introduced, setting forth how he and other youngsters of the Blood Roya were wont to take an occasional game at High Jinks, or tourney in air lists, the champions or opposite sides flying from the Perthshire and from the Argyleshire mountains, and encountering with a clash in the azure common, six thousand feet high. But the fever of love burned in his blood, and flying to the mountains of another continent, in obedience to the yell of an old oral tradition, he wooed and won his virgin bride-a monstrous beauty, widerwinged than himself, to kill or caress, and bearing the proof of her noble nativity in the radiant Iris that belongs in perfection of fierceness but to the Sun-starers, and in them is found, unimpaired by cloudiest clime, over the uttermost parts of the earth. The bridegroom and his bride, during the honey-moon, slept on the naked rock-till they had built their eyrie beneath its cliff-canopy on the mountain-brow. When the bride was "as Eagles wish to be who love their lords"-devoted unto her was the bridegroom, even as the cushat murmuring to his brooding mate in the central pine-grove of a forest. Tenderly did he drop from his talons, close beside her beak, the delicate spring lamb, or the too early leveret, owing to the hurried and imprudent marriage of its parents before March, buried in a living tomb on April's closing day. Through all thy glens, Albin! hadst thou reason to mourn, at the bursting of the shells that Queen-bird had been cherishing beneath her bosom. Aloft in heaven Oh for the Life of an Eagle written by himself! It would outsell the Confessions even of the English Opium-Eater. Proudly would he, or she, write of birth and parentage. On the rock of ages he first opened his eyes to the sun, in noble instinct affronting and outstaring the light. The Great Glen of Scotland-hath it not been the inheritance of his ancestors for many thousand years? No polluting mixture of ignoble blood, from intermarriages of necessity or convenience with kite, buzzard, hawk, or falcon. No, the Golden Eagle of Glen-Faloch, surnamed the Sun-starers, have formed alliances with the Golden Eagles of Cruachan, Benlawers, Shehallion, and Lochnagair-the Lightning-Glints, the Flood-fallers, the Storm-wheeled the Royal Pair, from rising to setting wheelers, the Cloud-cleavers, ever since the sun. Among the bright-blooming heather they deluge. The education of the autobiographer espied the tartan'd shepherd, or hunter creephad not been intrusted to a private tutor. Pa- ing like a lizard, and from behind the vain rental eyes, beaks, and talons, provided sus- shadow of a rock watching with his rifle the tenance for his infant frame; and in that capa- flight he would fain see shorn of its beams. cious eyrie, year after year repaired by dry The flocks were thinned—and the bleating of branches from the desert, parental advice was desolate dams among the woolly people heard yelled into him, meet for the expansion of his from many a brae. Poison was strewn over instinct, as wide and wonderful as the reason the glens for their destruction, but the Eagle, of earth-crawling man. What a noble natu- like the lion, preys not on carcasses; and the ralist did he, in a single session at the College shepherd dogs howled in agony over the carof the Cliff, become! Of the customs, and rion in which they devoured death. Ha! was habits, and haunts of all inferior creatures, he not that a day of triumph to the Sun-starers of speedily made himself master-ours included. Cruachan, when sky-hunting in couples, far Nor was his knowledge confined to theory, but down on the greensward before the ruined reduced to daily practice. He kept himself in gateway of Kilchurn Castle, they saw, left all constant training-taking a flight of a couple to himself in the sunshine, the infant heir of of hundred miles before breakfast-paying a the Campbell of Breadalbane, the child of the forenoon visit to the farthest of the Hebride Lord of Glenorchy and all its streams! Four Isles, and returning to dinner in Glenco. In talons in an instant were in his heart. Too one day he has flown to Norway on a visit to late were the outcries from all the turrets; for his uncle by the mother's side, and returned ere the castle-gates were flung open, the golden the next to comfort his paternal uncle, lying head of the royal babe was lying in gore, in sick at the Head of the Cambrian Dee. He the Eyrie on the iron ramparts of Ben Slarive soon learned to despise himself for having once-his blue eyes dug out-his rosy cheeks torn yelled for food, when food was none; and to-and his brains dropping from beaks that sit or sail, on rock or through ether, athirst and revelled yelling within the skull!-Such are a an hungered, but mute. The virtues of pa- few hints for "Some Passages in the Life of tience, endurance, and fortitude, have become the Golden Eagle, written by Himself,"-in with him, in strict accordance with the Aris-one volume crown octavo-Blackwoods, Edintotelian Moral Philosophy-habits. A Peri- burgh and London. patetic Philosopher he could hardly be called -properly speaking, he belongs to the Solar School-an airy sect, who take very high ground, indulge in lofty flights, and are often Lost in the clouds. Now and then a light O heavens and earth!-forests and barn. yards! what a difference with a distinction between a GOLDEN EAGLE and a GREEN GOOSE! There, all neck and bottom, splay footed, and hissing in miserable imitation of a serpent lolling from side to side, up and down like an of men on earth shooting eagles with their ill-trimmed punt, the downy gosling waddles mouths; because the thing is impossible, ever through the green mire, and, imagining that had their mouthpieces had percussion-locksKing George the Fourth is meditating mischief | had they been crammed with ammunition to against him, cackles angrily as he plunges the muzzle. Had a stray sparrow been flut into the pond. No swan that "on still St. tering in the air, he would certainly have got Mary's lake floats double, swan and shadow," a fright, and probably a fall-nor would there so proud as he! He prides himself on being have been any hope for a tom-tit. But an a gander, and never forgets the lesson instilled eagle-an eagle ever so many thousand feet into him by his parents, soon as he chipt the aloft-poo, poo!-he would merely have muted shell in the nest among the nettles, that his on the roaring multitude, and given Sardana. ancestors saved the Roman Capitol. In pro- palus an additional epaulette. Why, had a cess of time, in company with swine, he grazes string of wild-geese at the time been warping on the common, and insults the Egyptians in their way on the wind, they would merely have their roving camp. Then comes the season shot the wedge firmer and sharper into the air, of plucking-and this very pen bears testi- and answered the earth-born shout with an mony to his tortures. Out into the houseless air-born gabble-clangour to clangour. Where winter is he driven-and, if he escapes being were Mr. Atherstone's powers of ratiocination, frozen into a lump of fat ice, he is crammed and all his acoustics? Two shouts slew an till his liver swells into a four-pounder-his eagle. What became of all the other denizens cerebellum is cut by the cruel knife of a phre- of air-especially crows, ravens, and vultures, nological cook, and his remains buried with a who, seeing two millions of men, must have cerement of apple sauce in the paunches of come flocking against a day of battle? Every apoplectic aldermen, eating against each other mother's son of them must have gone to pot. at a civic feast! Such are a few hints for Then what scrambling among the allied troops: "Some Passages in the Life of a Green And what was one eagle doing by himself "upGoose," written by himself-in foolscap oc- by yonder?" Was he the only eagle in Assytavo-published by Quack and Co., Ludgate|ria-the secular bird of ages? Who was Lane, and sold by all booksellers in town and country. Poor poets must not meddle with eagles. In the Fall of Nineveh, Mr. Atherstone describes a grand review of his army by Sardanapalus. Two million men are put into motion by the moving of the Assyrian flag-staff in the hand of the king, who takes his station on a mount conspicuous to all the army. This flag-staff, though "tall as a mast"-Mr. Atherstone does not venture to go on to say with Milton, "hewn on Norwegian hills," or " of some tall ammiral," though the readers' minds supply the deficiency-this mast was, we are told, for “two strong men a task;" but it must have been so for twenty. To have had the least chance of being all at once seen by two million of men, it could not have been less than fifty feet high-and if Sardanapalus waved the royal standard of Assyria round his head, Samson or O'Doherty must have been a joke to him. However, we shall suppose he did; and what was the result? Such shouts arose that the solid walls of Nineveh were shook, "and the firm ground made tremble." But this was not all. "At his height, A speck scarce visible, the eagle heard, What think ye of that, John Audubon, Charles Bonaparte, J. Prideaux Selby, James Wilson, Sir William Jardine, and ye other European and American ornithologists? Pray, Mr. Atherstone, did you ever see an eagle-a speck in the sky? Never again suffer yourself, oh, dear sir! to believe old women's tales looking at him, first a speck-then falteringthen fluttering and wildly screaming-then plump down like a stone? Mr. Atherstone talks as if he saw it. In the circumstances he had no business with his "sunny eye growing dark." That is entering too much into the medical, or rather anatomical symptoms of his apoplexy, and would be better for a medical journal than an epic poem. But to be done with it-two shouts that slew an eagle a mile up the sky, must have cracked all the tympana of the two million shouters. The entire army must have become as deaf as a post. Nay, Sardanapalus himself, on the mount, must have been blown into the air as by the explosion of a range of gunpowdermills; the campaign taken a new turn; and a revolution been brought about, of which, at this distance of place and time, it is not easy for us to conjecture what might have been the fundamental features on which it would have hinged-and thus an entirely new aspect given to all the histories of the world. What is said about the lion, is to our minds equally picturesque and absurd. He was among the "far-off hills." How far, pray? Twenty miles? If so then, without a silver ear-trumpet he could not have heard the huzzas. If the far-off hills were so near Nineveh as to allow the lion to hear the huzzas even in his sleep, the epithet "far-off" should be altered, and the lion himself brought from the interior. But we cannot believe that lions were permitted to live in dens within ear-shot of Nineveh. Nimrod had taught them "never to come there no more"-and Semiramis looked sharp after the suburbs. But, not to insist unduly upon a mere matter of police, is it the nature of lions, lying in their dens among faroff hills, to start up from their sleep, and "breathe hot roarings out" in fierce reply to the shouts of armies? All stuff! Mr. Ather stone shows off his knowledge of natural his. tory, in telling us that the said lion, in roaring, | Vauxhall. Besides, an eagle does not, when "laid his monstrous mouth close to the floor." descending on her prey, fall like a rock. There We believe he does so; but did Mr. Atherstone is nothing like the "vis inertia" in her prelearn the fact from Cuvier or from Wombwell? cipitation. You still see the self-willed energy It is always dangerous to a poet to be too of the ravenous bird, as the mass of plumes picturesque; and in this case, you are made, flashes in the spray-of which, by the by, there whether you will or no, to see an old, red, lean, never was, nor will be, a column so raised. mangy monster, called a lion, in his unhappy She is as much the queen of birds as she sinks den in a menagerie, bathing his beard in the as when she soars-her trust and her power Baw-dust, and from his toothless jaws "breath- are still seen and felt to be in her pinions, ing hot roarings out," to the terror of servant- whether she shoots to or from the zenith-to girls and children, in fierce reply to a man in a falling star she might be likened-just as a hairy cap and full suit of velveteen, stirring any other devil-either by Milton or Wordshim up with a long pole, and denominating worth-for such a star seems to our eye and him by the sacred name of the great asserter our imagination ever instinct with spirit, not of Scottish independence. to be impelled by exterior force, but to be selfshot from heaven. Sir Humphry Davy-in his own science the first man of his age-does not shine in his "Salmonia"--pleasant volume though it be as an ornithologist. Let us see. 66 Upon our word, we begin to believe that we ourselves deserve the name of Poietes much better than the gentleman who at threescore POIET. The scenery improves as we ad- had never seen an eagle. "She has fallen vance nearer the lower parts of the lake. The from a great height," quoth the gentlemanmountains become higher, and that small "What an extraordinary sight!" he continueth island or peninsula presents a bold craggy-while we are mute as the oar suspended by outline; and the birch-wood below it, and the pines above, make a scene somewhat Alpine in character. But what is that large bird soaring above the pointed rock, towards the end of the lake? Surely it is an eagle! "HAL.-You are right; it is an eagle, and of a rare and peculiar species-the gray or silver eagle, a noble bird! From the size of the animal, it must be the female; and her eyrie is that high rock. I dare say the male is not far off." the up-gazing Celt, whose quiet eye brightens as it pursues the Bird to her eyrie in the cliff over the cove where the red-deer feed. Poietes having given vent to his emotions in such sublime exclamations-" Look at the bird!" "What an extraordinary sight!" might have thenceforth held his tongue, and said no more about eagles. But Halieus cries, "There! you see her rise with a fish in her talons"and Poietes, very simply, or rather like a simpleton, returns for answer, "She gives an Sir Humphry speaks in his introductory interest which I hardly expected to have found in pages of Mr. Wordsworth as a lover of fishing this scene. Pray, are there many of these animals and fishermen; and we cannot help thinking in this country?" A poet hardly expecting to and feeling that he intends Poietes as an image find interest in such a scene as a great Highof that great Poet. What! William Words- land loch-Loch Maree! "Pray, are there many worth, the very high-priest of nature, repre- of these hanimals in this country?" Loud cries of sented to have seen an eagle for the first time Oh! oh! oh! No doubt an eagle is an aniin his life only then, and to have boldly ven- mal; like Mr. Cobbett or Mr. O'Connell "a tured on a conjecture that such was the name very fine animal;" but we particularly, and and nature of the bird! "But what is that earnestly, and anxiously, request Sir Humphry large bird soaring above the pointed rock, to- Davy not to call her so again-but to use the wards the end of the lake? Surely it is an term bird, or any other term he chooses, exeagle!" "Yes, you are right-it is an eagle." cept animal. Animal, a living creature, is too Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Sir Humphry-general, too vague by far; and somehow or Sir Humphry-that guffaw was not ours-it other it offends our ear shockingly when apcame from the Bard of Rydal-albeit unused | plied to an eagle. We may be wrong, but in to the laughing mood-in the haunted twilight of that beautiful-that solemn Terrace. Poietes having been confirmed, by the authority of Halieus, in his belief that the bird is an eagle, exclaims, agreeably to the part he plays, "Look at the bird! She dashes into the water, falling like a rock and raising a column of spray-she has fallen from a great height. And now she rises again into the air-what an extraordinary sight!" Nothing is so annoying as to be ordered to look at a sight which, un- Neither ought Poietes to have asked if there less you shut your eyes, it is impossible for were "many of these animals" in this country. you not to see. A person behaving in a boat He ought to have known that there are not like Poietes, deserved being flung overboard. many of these animals in any country. Eagles "Look at the bird!" Why, every eye was are proud-apt to hold their heads very high aiready upon her; and if Poietes had had aand to make themselves scarce. A great single spark of poetry in his composition, he many eagles all flying about together would would have been struck mute by such a sight, instead of bawling out, open-mouthed and goggle-eyed, like a Cockney to a rocket at a trifling matter of this kind Sir Humphry surely will not refuse our supplication. Let him call a horse an animal, if he chooses-or an ass-or a cow-but not an eagle-as he loves us, not an eagle; let him call it a bird the Bird of Jove-the Queen or King of the Sky-or any thing else he chooses-but not an animal-no-no-no-not an animal, as he hopes to prosper, to be praised in Maga, embalmed and immortalized. look most absurd. They are aware of that, and fly in "ones and twos"--a couple perhaps to a county. Poietes might as well have asked Mungo Park if there were a great many lions | tus,) which is rather a large fishing-hawk than in Africa. Mungo, we think, saw but one; an eagle, there are two kinds, viz.—the GOLDEN and that was one too much. There were probably a few more between Sego and Timbuctoo-but there are not a "great many of those animals in that country" though quite sufficient for the purpose. How the Romans contrived to get at hundreds for a single show, perplexes our power of conjecture. Halieus says-with a smile on his lip surely -in answer to the query of Poietes-" Of this species I have seen but these two; and, I believe, the young ones migrate as soon as they can provide for themselves; for this solitary bird requires a large space to move and feed in, and does not allow its offspring to partake its reign, or to live near it." This is all pretty true, and known to every child rising or risen six, except poor Poietes. He had imagined that there were "many of these animals in this country," that they all went a-fishing together as amicably as five hundred sail of Manksmen among a shoal of herrings. EAGLE, (F. Chrysaetos,) and the WHITE-TAILED or CINEROUS EAGLE, (F. Albicilla.) The other two nominal species are disposed of in the following manner:-First, the RING-TAILED EAGLE (F. Fulvus) is the young of the Golden Eagle, being distinguished in early life by having the basal and central portion of the tail white, which colour disappears as the bird attains the adult state. Second, the SEA EAGLE, (F. Ossifragus,) commonly so called, is the young of the White-tailed Eagle above named, from which it differs in having a brown tail; for in this species the white of the tail becomes every year more apparent as the bird increases in age, whereas, in the Golden Eagle, the white altogether disappears in the adult. It is to the RING-TAILED EAGLE, and, by consequence, to the GOLDEN EAGLE, that the name of BLACK EAGLE is applied in the Highlands. The White-tailed or Sea Eagle, as it becomes old, attains, in addition to the pure tail, a pale or bleached appearance, from which it may merit and obtain the name of Gray or SILVER EAGLE, as Sir Humphry Davy chooses to call it; but it is not known among naturalists by that name. There is no other species, however, to which the name can apply; and, therefore, Sir Humphry has committed the very gross mistake of calling the Gray or Silver Eagle (to use his own nomenclature) a very rare Eagle, since it is the most common of all the Scots, and also-a fortiori-of all the English Eagles-being in fact the SEA EAGLE of the Highlands. Throughout these Dialogues we have observed that Ornither rarely opens his mouth. Why so taciturn? On the subject of birds he ought, from his name, to be well informed; and how could he let slip an opportunity, such as will probably never be afforded him again in this life, of being eloquent on the Silver Eagle Ornithology is surely the department of Ornither. Yet there is evidently something odd and peculiar in his idiosyncrasy; for we observe that he never once alludes to "these animals," birds, during the whole excursion. He has not taken his gun with him into the Highlands, a sad oversight indeed in a gentleman who "is to be regarded as generally fond It preys often on fish dead or alive; but not of the sports of the field." Flappers are plen-exclusively, as it also attacks young lambs, tiful over all the moors about the middle of and drives off the ravens from carrion prey, July; and hoodies, owls, hawks, ravens, make being less fastidious in its diet than the GOLDEN all first-rate shooting to sportsmen not over EAGLE, which probably kills its own meatanxious about the pot. It is to be presumed, and has been known to carry off children; for too, that he can stuff birds. What noble spe- a striking account of one of which hay-field cimens might he not have shot for Mr. Selby! robberies you have but a few minutes to wait. On one occasion, "the SILVER EAGLE" is As to its driving off its young, its habits are preying in a pool within slug range, and there probably similar in this respect to other birds is some talk of shooting him—we suppose with of prey, none of which appear to keep together an oar, or the butt of a fishing-rod, for the party in families after the young can shift for themhave no fire-arms-but Poietes insists on spar-selves; but we have never met with any one ing his life, because "these animals" are a picturesque accompaniment to the scenery, and "give it an interest which he had not expected to find" in mere rivers, lochs, moors, and mountains. Genus Falco must all the while have been laughing in his sleeve at the whole party-particularly at Ornither-who, to judge from his general demeanour, may be a fair shot with number five at an old newspaper expanded on a barn-door twenty yards off, but never could have had the audacity to think in his most ambitious mood of letting off his gun at an Eagle. who has seen them in the act of driving. It is stated vaguely, in all books, of all eagles. As to its requiring a large range to feed in we have only to remark that, from the pow erful flight of these birds, and the wild and barren nature of the countries which they inhabit, there can be no doubt that they fly far, and "prey in distant isles"-as Thomson has it; but Halieus needed not have stated this circumstance as a character of this peculiar eagle for an eagle with a small range does not exist; and therefore it is to be presumed that they require a large one. But further, Halieus, before he took upon Further, all this being the case, there seems him to speak so authoritatively about eagles, to be no necessity for the old eagles giving should have made himself master of their themselves the trouble to drive off the young names and natures. He is manifestly no sci- ones, who by natural instinct will fly off of entific ornithologist. We are. The general their own accord, as soon as their wings can question concerning Eagles in Scotland may bear them over the sea. If an eagle were so now be squeezed into very small compass. partial to his native vale, as never on any Exclusive of the true Osprey, (Falco Halia-account, hungry or thirstv. drunk or sober, to |