regions.

To study the flight of the eagle, we should repair to Alpine highlands. When he has reached a certain altitude of the atmosphere, the royal bird descends obliquely, as upon an inclined plane, with a rush and a din of wings,[58] and at a speed of upwards of thirty-six yards per second. We assured ourselves of the accuracy of this fact during an ascent of Mount Hochkœrpf, in the canton of Glaris. The bird traversed in six minutes a space of 40,000 Swiss feet, which is equal to about forty yards per second. This result agrees, on the whole, with the observations of a traveller, who wrote in the Nouvelle Gazette de Zurich, on the 26th of August 1863:—

"A society of tourists set out from Corri to climb the Stützerhorn, which is 8400 feet in height. From the summit they perceived an enormous eagle, which, having taken his flight from Calanda, beyond the Rhine, directed his course towards the Stützerhorn, for the purpose of halting, after a certain inflection, on the side of the Rothhorn."

The duration of the flight was five minutes; the interval between the starting-point and the point of arrival, two French leagues and a half. In three hundred seconds, therefore, the eagle must have traversed a space of 3000 Swiss feet, which is equal to a speed of forty-five yards per second. Hence, the swiftness of the eagle's flight is nearly equal to the velocity of sound.

One of the most admirable descriptions of the habits of this bird with which we are acquainted, is furnished by the well-known naturalist Macgillivray:—

"There he stands"—on his lonely crag—"nearly erect, with his tail depressed, his large wings half raised by his side, his neck stretched out, and his eye glistening as he glances around. Like other robbers of the desert, he has