THE EAGLE
“If it were my purpose to give you a systematic and scientific account
of birds, instead of acquainting you with the various species useful to
agriculture, I ought to have begun with birds that hunt by day and to
have postponed my talks on those that hunt by night; in other words,
the eagle, the falcon, and the hawk should have been described first.
But should you ask me why, I should be rather at a loss for a
satisfactory answer. For want of a better let us content ourselves with
this one: the first do their work by day, the second at night. But the
eagle and the others of that group live at our expense, while the
horned owl and its kind render us a great service by holding in check
what would else be a disastrous multiplication of rodents.
Consequently, in point of usefulness, the night-bird comes first.
“But this is contrary to all usage, both scientific and popular, which
puts the eagle first in the list of birds. Do we not say of the eagle
that it is the king of birds? Why has this title been given to the
fierce bandit, the murderer of lambs? I should be puzzled to answer
this question did I not know man’s inclination to glorify brute
strength even though he himself may be its victim. You, my children,
will find that out only too soon, to your sorrow. Plunder on a grand
scale appeals, alas, to something in our faulty human nature that makes
us excuse it; nay, more, that makes us glorify it; whereas productive
toil, useful to all, leaves us cold or even disdainful. The falcon is a
ravisher of our hen-houses, a bloodthirsty marauder of our dove-cotes;
and we hold it in high esteem, calling it a noble bird. Shall we, then,
never learn to judge animals and men by their true worth, their real
usefulness? Let us hope that as so many fine minds have worked, are
working, and always will work to bring about this miracle, you, my
children, will some day follow their example. Work for this end with
all your power, and blessings be upon you if you succeed in giving some
additional strength, however little it may be, to this common effort
put forth by all men of light and leading.
“I shall discuss but briefly the birds of prey whose activities are
confined to the daylight hours. They are nearly all bandits, nothing
else, living at our cost by robbery and murder. From the fact that they
hunt by day, never at night, they are called diurnal or day birds of
prey. The brightest light does not dazzle them. It is even said of the
eagle and others of this class that they can look straight at the sun,
and this is credited to them as an added title of nobility. But there
is no great merit in this performance when once you know how they shade
their eyes in accomplishing it. They have three eyelids to each eye:
first, two like ours, an upper and a lower, which close in sleep, and
then a third, which is semi-transparent and is withdrawn completely
into the corner of the eye when the bird has no use for it, but when
needed comes out from under the other two, which remain open, and
serves as a curtain. If the light is too bright or the bird wishes to
look toward the sun, it has merely to draw over the eye this third
eyelid, this eye-shade, through the semi-transparency of which the rays
of light enter the pupil in a much subdued intensity. There you have
the whole secret of the eagle’s bold look in facing the sun.”
“I could do as much if I shaded my eyes with a curtain,” Emile
declared.
“All these birds are furnished with a very strong beak having hooked
mandibles for dismembering their prey. Their claws are composed of four
separate talons to each foot, three of these talons pointing forward
and one backward. The talons are long, recurved, and grooved on the
under side, the grooves having sharp edges that they may the better cut
into flesh. The eagle’s bearing is bold, its looks stern, and its
flight marvelously powerful. Eagles like to circle about in the air, to
soar with scarcely a movement of the wings in the upper regions of the
atmosphere beyond our view. Nevertheless, even from this immense height
they can distinguish what is taking place on the earth’s surface below.
They explore every farm with their piercing eyes and inspect every
poultry-yard. Let a suitable prey show itself, and instantly the bird
swoops down with whistling wing, faster than lead would fall. The
unwary fowl is snatched from under the farmer’s very eyes.
“Fortunately, the eagle, the chief of these bandits, is a very rare
bird. In form it is large, measuring a meter and more from the tip of
the beak to the tip of the tail, and it is covered with brown plumage.
Its extended wings measure a span of nearly three meters. Its fierce
eye, overshadowed by a very prominent eyebrow, glows with a somber
fire. The eagle’s nest is known as its aery, and is flat instead of
bowl-shaped like other birds’ nests. It is a sort of solid floor made
of interwoven twigs and covered with a bed of rushes and heather. It is
commonly placed on the face of some steep and forbidding precipice and
between two rocks, the upper one of which overhangs and forms a kind of
roof for the nest. The eggs, two in number—sometimes, though rarely,
three—are of a dingy white spotted with red. The young eaglets are so
greedy that at the time of their rearing the aery is strewn with bits
of bleeding flesh. Some neighboring ledge of rock serves the parents as
slaughter-house and cutting-up bench. It is there that the hares and
rabbits, partridges and ducks, lambs and kids, seized in the plains and
carried in rapid flight to the lofty heights where the eagle makes its
home, are torn to pieces in order to be fed to the ever-hungry
eaglets.”
“Is the eagle really strong enough,” asked Emile, “to carry off a lamb
like that? I had heard it, but couldn’t believe it.”
“Nothing is less open to doubt,” his uncle assured him. “It would carry
you off if it found you alone in the mountains.”
“I could defend myself with a stick.”
“Possibly; but let me tell you an incident, one of many to be found in
the pages of an author whose word we may believe.
“Two little girls, one five years old, the other three, were playing
together when a medium-sized eagle suddenly swooped down upon the elder
and despite her companion’s cries, and in the very face of some workmen
who came hurrying to the spot, snatched her up into the air. Two months
later a shepherd found, on a rock half a league distant, the body of
the child half devoured and dried up.
“What do you think now of the eagle, the king of birds?”
“I think it’s a brigand of the worst kind,” affirmed Jules.
“Would you like to see an eagle in the act of hunting, witness its
fierce joy when it buries its hooked talons in the quivering flesh of
its prey? Then listen to this fine passage from the pen of that ardent
lover of birds, Audubon. The scene is laid far from here, in America,
and the eagle belongs to a different species from ours; but never mind,
the ways of these bandits are the same everywhere.
“‘To give you some idea of the nature of this bird, permit me to place
you on the Mississippi, on which you may float gently along, while
approaching winter brings millions of water-fowl on whistling wings,
from the countries of the north, to seek a milder climate in which to
sojourn for a season. The Eagle is seen perched in an erect attitude,
on the highest summit of the tallest tree by the margin of the broad
stream. His glistening but stern eye looks over the vast expanse. He
listens attentively to every sound that comes to his quick ear from
afar, glancing now and then on the earth beneath, lest even the light
tread of the fawn may pass unheard. His mate is perched on the opposite
side, and should all be tranquil and silent, warns him by a cry to
continue patient. At this well known call, the male partly opens his
broad wings, inclines his body a little downwards, and answers to her
voice in tones not unlike the laugh of a maniac. The next moment, he
resumes his erect attitude, and again all around is silent. Ducks of
many species, the Teal, the Wigeon, the Mallard and others, are seen
passing with great rapidity, and following the course of the current;
but the Eagle heeds them not: they are at that time beneath his
attention. The next moment, however, the wild trumpetlike sound of a
yet distant but approaching Swan is heard. A shriek from the female
Eagle comes across the stream,—for she is as fully on the alert as her
mate. The latter suddenly shakes the whole of his body, and with a few
touches of his bill, aided by the action of his cuticular muscles,
arranges his plumage in an instant. The snow-white bird is now in
sight: her long neck is stretched forward, her eye is on the watch,
vigilant as that of her enemy; her large wings seem with difficulty to
support the weight of her body, although they flap incessantly. So
irksome do her exertions seem, that her very legs are spread beneath
her tail, to aid her in her flight. She approaches, however. The Eagle
has marked her for his prey. As the Swan is passing the dreaded pair,
the male bird, in full preparation for the chase, starts from his perch
with an awful scream, that to the Swan’s ear brings more terror than
the report of the large duck-gun.
“‘Now is the moment to witness the display of the Eagle’s powers. He
glides through the air like a falling star, and, like a flash of
lightning, comes upon the timorous quarry, which now, in agony and
despair, seeks, by various manœuvres, to elude the grasp of his cruel
talons. It mounts, doubles, and willingly would plunge into the stream,
were it not prevented by the Eagle, which, long possessed of the
knowledge that by such a stratagem the Swan might escape him, forces it
to remain in the air by attempting to strike it with his talons from
beneath. The hope of escape is soon given up by the Swan. It has
already become much weakened, and its strength fails at the sight of
the courage and swiftness of its antagonist. Its last gasp is about to
escape, when the ferocious Eagle strikes with his talons the under side
of its wings, and with unresisted power forces the bird to fall in a
slanting direction upon the nearest shore.
“‘It is then, reader, that you may see the cruel spirit of this dreaded
enemy of the feathered race, whilst, exulting over his prey, he for the
first time breathes at ease. He presses down his powerful feet, and
drives his sharp claws deeper than ever into the heart of the dying
Swan. He shrieks with delight as he feels the last convulsions of his
prey, which has now sunk under his unceasing efforts to render death as
painfully felt as it can possibly be. The female has watched every
movement of her mate, and if she did not assist him in capturing the
Swan, it was not from want of will, but merely that she felt full
assurance that the power and courage of her lord were quite sufficient
for the deed. She now sails to the spot where he eagerly awaits her,
and when she has arrived, they together turn the breast of the luckless
Swan upwards, and gorge themselves with gore.’” [5]
“Poor swan!” was Emile’s pitying comment.