The faculties of birds / [Anon].

  • James Rennie
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The faculties of birds / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    “ that both the eagle and other rapacious birds are very sharp-sighted, yet do I not think that their eyes can reach the object at such distances*.” We may remark, however, with all deference to the high authority of Willughby, that his scepticism is here carried too far, as the accounts he objects to are supported by undoubted facts. For though we should reject the authority of Homer, who, as Pope renders it, says—• ———- Endued with sharpest eye, The sacred eagle, from his walks above, Looks down and sees the distant thicket move. Then stoops, and sousing on the quivering hare, Snatches his lifef; and though we should doubt the testimony of Aurelius Augustine, who says that “ the eagle, when so high in the air as to be invisible to us, can perceive a hare lurking in an orchard, or a small fish swimming in the water yet we cannot refuse to admit as unques¬ tionable facts the observations of such men as Wilson and Vaillant. Speaking of the white-headed eagle (Haliaetus leucocephalus, Savigny), Wilson says, “ from the ethereal heights to which he soars, looking abroad, at one glance, on an immeasurable expanse of forests, fields, lakes, and ocean, deep below him and of the osprey (Pandion haliaetus, Savigny) he says, “ down rapid as an arrow from heaven he descends, the roar of his wings reaching the ear as he disappears in the deep§.” M. Vaillant again says of his vociferous eagle {Haliaetus vocifer, Savigny), that, “like the osprey and the white-tailed eagle {Haliaetus albicilla, Savigny), it dives rapidly from a great height in the air upon a fish which it ♦Ornithology, by Ray, p. 57. f Iliad, xvii. | Apud Aldrovand, Ornith. i. 15. §Amer. Ornith. v.
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