As to its requiring a large range to feed in—we have only to remark that, from the powerful 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.
Further, all this being the case, there seems to be no necessity for the old eagles giving themselves the trouble to drive off the young ones, who by natural instinct will fly off of their own accord, as soon as their wings can bear them over the sea. If an eagle were so partial to his native vale, as never on any account, hungry or thirsty, drunk or sober, to venture into the next parish, why then the old people would be forced, on the old principle of self-preservation, to pack off their progeny to bed and board beyond Benevis. But an Eagle is a Citizen of the World. He is friendly to the views of Mr Huskisson on the Wool Trade, the Fisheries, and the Colonies—and acts upon the old adage,
"Every bird for himself, and God for us all!"
To conclude, for the present, this branch of our subject, we beg leave humbly to express our belief, that Sir Humphry Davy never saw the Eagle, by him called the Grey or Silver, hunting for fish in the style described in "Salmonia." It does not dislike fish—but it is not its nature to keep hunting for them so, not in the Highlands at least, whatever it may do on American continent or isles. Sir Humphry talks of the bird dashing down repeatedly upon a pool within shot of the anglers. We have angled fifty times in the Highlands for Sir Humphry's once, but never saw nor heard of such a sight. He has read of such things, and introduced them into this dialogue for the sake of effect—all quite right to do—had his reading lain among trustworthy Ornithologists. The common Eagle—which he ignorantly, as we have seen, calls so rare—is a shy bird, as all shepherds know—and is seldom within range of the rifle. Gorged with blood, they are sometimes run in upon and felled with a staff or club. So perished, in the flower of his age, that Eagle whose feet now form handles to the bell-ropes of our Sanctum at Buchanan Lodge—and are the subject of a clever copy of verses by Mullion, entitled "All the Talons."
We said in "The Moors," that we envied not the eagle or any other bird his wings, and showed cause why we preferred our own feet. Had Puck wings? If he had, we retract, and would sport Puck.
Oberon.
"Fetch me this herb—and be thou here again,
Ere the Leviathan can swim a league."
"I'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes."
How infinitely more poetical are wings like these than seven-league boots! We declare, on our conscience, that we would not accept the present of a pair of seven-league boots to-morrow—or, if we did, it would be out of mere politeness to the genie who might press them on us, and the wisest thing we could do would be to lock them up in a drawer out of the reach of the servants. Suppose that we wished to walk from Clovenford to Innerleithen—why, with seven-league boots on, one single step would take us up to Posso, seven miles above Peebles! That would never do. By mincing one's steps, indeed, one might contrive to stop at Innerleithen; but suppose a gad-fly were to sting one's hip at the Pirn—one unintentional stride would deposit Christopher at Drummelzier, and another over the Cruik, and far away down Annan water! Therefore, there is nothing like wings. On wings you can flutter—and glide—and float and soar—now like a humming-bird among the flowers—now like a swan, half rowing, half sailing, and half flying adown a river—now like an eagle afloat in the blue ocean of heaven, or shooting sunwards, invisible in excess of light—and bidding farewell to earth and its humble shadows. "O that I had the wings of a dove, that I might flee away and be at rest!" Who hath not, in some heavy hour or other, from the depth of his very soul, devoutly—passionately—hopelessly—breathed that wish to escape beyond the limits of woe and sin—not into the world of dreamless death; for weary though the immortal pilgrim may have been, never desired he the doom of annihilation, untroubled although it be, shorn of all the attributes of being—but he has prayed for the wings of the dove, because that fair creature, as she wheeled herself away from the sight of human dwellings, has seemed to disappear to his imagination among old glimmering forests, wherein she foldeth her wing and falleth gladly asleep—and therefore, in those agitated times when the spirits of men acknowledge kindred with the inferior creatures, and would fain interchange with them powers and qualities, they are willing even to lay down their intelligence, their reason, their conscience itself, so that they could but be blessed with the faculty of escaping from all the agonies that intelligence, and reason, and conscience alone can know, and beyond the reach of this world's horizon to flee away and be at rest!