Imperial Eagle

“ The Eagle is not nearly so common; some we have mentioned in a former part as undoubtedly of heraldic origin. From this source the Golden Eagle may be derived; it was the emblem of the Eastern Empire, and occurs in various family arms; but it is also a fera naturæ. It was, in 1711, the sign of James Levi, a bookseller in the Strand, near the Fountain Tavern. The Eagle and Ball, of which there are two in Birmingham, was suggested by the imperial eagle standing on the globe, or the spread eagle with the globe in his talon. ”

“ The Imperial Eagle rises, with his children at his tail, and with his claws before him makes his nest in Portugal. Put an A with its legs upside down; take away its middle bar, and put this bar behind it. ”

“ To clear the ground, we must first explain that the young of the Imperial Eagle are, in their first plumage, of a uniform, rich tawny chestnut, or café-au-lait colour. We have shot beautiful examples in this stage in June and July, when, during the intense mid-day heat, the young eagles are wont to seek the shade of the tree whereon they were hatched. ”

“ Let every European over them, every German merchant, and, above all, every foreigner in the land to which we are going, or with whom we may have to do, understand that the German Michael has firmly planted on this soil his shield bearing the Imperial Eagle, so as to be able, once and for all, to give his protection to all those who may require it of him. ”

“ We have since had many opportunities of observing the breeding habits of this species on the wooded plains of Andalucia and Estremadura. The eggs, usually three in number, are mostly white, more or less splashed or spotted with faint evanescent reddish or brown shades, and are laid about the middle of March. The nests of the Imperial Eagle are about four feet across, and invariably placed on the extreme summit of a tall tree—cork-oak or pine—all projecting twigs being broken off so as to offer no obstruction to the sitting bird's view. ”

“ About four hundred years ago a lady, who claimed to be the heir of the Byzantine Emperor, married Ivan III., Czar of Russia, who, therefore, assumed the Greek arms, which may possibly be restored again to Constantinople by Russian arms.
The United States chose for her emblem the same imperial and triumphant bird. Some have considered it as not altogether an appropriate device for our republican government. Students of natural history have observed that the eagle is mean and cowardly. He lives, moreover, a life of rapine, plundering birds that are bolder and more industrious than himself. ”

“ A white man, naked to the waist, about his loins a billowy sarong of imperial yellow silk; upon his white and hairless breast the gorgeously colored figure of an eagle, identical with the figure sculptured above the Hsimen ”

“ But to these men he will never die. It is their blood that is upon that eagle staff. It was in their hands that it received those wounds. While they carried it, flung to the breeze of battle, it was shot-torn and storm-riven. It is a priceless treasure to them all. As they followed it with the ardor and devotion of youth so they now guard it and respect it with the steadier but not less intense consecration of maturity and old age.
The eagle of a vanished empire, the emblem of a fame that is past. ”

“ The Eagle has long been regarded as the King of Birds, just as the lion is spoken of as the King of Beasts. There are some who say that he is not worthy of this honour, but certainly few of his subjects would care to fight him for the crown, for he has a remarkably strong beak, and his feet are armed with the sharpest of claws. Soaring high up in the air, he swoops down on his prey like a thunderbolt from the sky, and carries it off to his nest on some rocky cliff or steep mountain side. Small birds, rabbits, lambs, and fawns all help to fill the Eagle’s larder. ”

“ His glance pierced every man's heart. 'Soldiers of the Fifth,' he said, 'when I heard of the attack on the bridge at Ratisbon I said to my staff, "I am tranquil, the Terrible Fifth is there," and now I see you alive, many of you unharmed, and without your Eagle. What have you done with it?' he thundered out his face black as midnight. 'Sire,' said I, stepping forward and upon my word, comrades, it took more courage to face the Emperor in that mood than to charge an Austrian battery, 'we have not lost our Eagle. ”

“ Austria, Prussia, Poland, Sicily, Spain, Sardinia, and many of the small governments of Germany, look up to the eagle on their standards; while, upon the other side of the Atlantic, it waves over the great nations of the United States and Mexico, as well as several of the smaller republics. Why, a general war among the nations of the world would be almost exclusively a war among the eagles! It is not improbable that the lion would insist upon having a claw in the quarrel ”

“ Eyes sparkled in some faces, brimmed with tears in others, cheeks paled on one hand and flushed upon the other; breaths came quicker, a low murmur ran through the room—almost terrible in its meaning.
"The Eagle of the regiment, messieurs," said old Lestoype solemnly, breaking the silence.
"Vive l'Empereur!" suddenly exclaimed a veteran port-aigle, or standard bearer, in a low but tense voice, and the mighty battle-cry swept softly through the room from man to man, in low notes, in broken whispers like a great wavering sigh from a multitude of throbbing hearts. ”

“ They felt that the Eagle would very admirably typify the spirit of American Liberty. The Eagle steals her prey; America steals her blacks. The eagle will feed upon human flesh; so does America—that is, if the flesh have within it any negro blood. The eagle—that is, the free American Eagle, lays putrid eggs; nought wholesome, nought vital is produced from them. They are foul things, fit for no service. ”

“ Although several species of real eagles inhabit the Mediterranean region and those parts of Europe and Asia where these nations lived, and warred, and passed away, and are somewhat confused in the mass of myth and tradition relating to them, the one chosen by Rome was the golden eagle, so called because of the golden gloss that suffuses the feathers of the neck in mature birds. Now we have this species of sea-eagle in the United States, and it has been from time immemorial the honored War-eagle of the native redmen. ”

“ Elevated on the high dead limb of some gigantic tree, that commands a wide view of the neighbouring shore and ocean, the great White-headed Eagle seems calmly to contemplate the motions of the various feathered tribes that pursue their busy vocations below. High over all these hovers one whose actions instantly arrest all his attention. By his wide curvature of wing, and sudden suspension in air, he knows him to be the Fish Hawk settling over some devoted victim of the deep. His eye kindles at the sight, and balancing himself with half-open wings on the branch, he watches the result. ”

“ Eagle is very good to the Washashee; he knows that they have neither food nor arms; there is not one knife among the four: they are among the mountains, a whole moon’s journey from their village, surrounded by war–parties of the Upsaroka and Black–feet, and on their return path must pass the hunting–grounds of the Shiennes, the Kiowás, the Pânis, and the Mahas. War–Eagle would rather that they were starved, and their bones gnawed by the wolves, than see them die like warriors, and laugh at the Lenapé in their death. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Its frontlet is an Eagle—the emblem of power, strength, and freedom; the Eagle’s wings are wide spread; the bird glitters with gems—oh, how they shine!—but they are above eyes that fain would weep, yet dare not; they are above a heart that must not break! ”

“ When they wished the Golden Eagle to soar aloft from the ground, all that was necessary to do with this equipment was to throw in a clutch geared to the rear pair of wheels and the Golden Eagle, like a great bird with her wings spread, began to glide over the ground, and in a few seconds the pressure of the air under her curved planes gave her the necessary lift and she shot up like a hawk, or her namesake, leaving the eyrie. ”

“ They see that all other beings live beneath them, and that they are the children of the King of Birds. A young eagle shows the spirit of a warrior while still in the nest.
“Being exposed to the inclemency of the weather the young eaglets are hardy. They are accustomed to hear the mutterings of the Thunder Bird and the sighings of the Great Mystery. Why, the little eagles cannot help being as noble as they are, because their parents selected for them so lofty and inspiring a home! ”

“ The Eagles are widely scattered. They are birds of lofty and powerful, but not rapid flight. From the latter circumstance, they usually prefer to strike their prey on the ground, the weight of their bodies rendering them unfitted for pursuing a flying prey through its quick and tortuous evolutions. They breed in solitude, on the inaccessible crags of precipitous mountains.
The Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos, Linn.) is the noblest species of the whole Family, for size, strength, and courage. ”

“ Eagles have, however, fallen terribly low in France, and they are being publicly exhibited in every variety of form and substance, from the Spread Eagle cut in paper, at three sous, to the Eagle ready to seize on its prey, carved in gilt wood, at one or two Napoleons. It is quite true that the French have found their master not at all earlier than they wanted him ”

“ He made his adieus, and took his way back to the Hill of the Kingfisher.
Again the people talked with one another and considered; and at last said some: “Inasmuch as he has failed, let us send for our grandfather, Great Eagle. He, of all living creatures with wings, is swiftest and keenest of sight, strong of grasp, hooked of beak, whatever getting holding, and getting whatever he will.” ”

“ There was scarcely a man in the regiment—unless some royalist officer or new recruit—who had not been glad that their own Eagle had been lost honorably in battle and buried, as they believed, in the river. ”

“ Their captivity seemed neither so irksome, nor so contradictory to nature, as that of a Bald Eagle on the American side, who wears his chain with such a sad, abject demeanor, as to pain the beholder. Methinks the king of birds should be left free to soar at will, in the dominion of the monarch of cataracts. Some of the most majestic Eagles have been found in this region. Numbers of smaller birds are often seen sporting on the verge of the mighty cataract, and dipping their wings in its tinted mist, with a strange enthusiasm of delight. ”

“ The Eagle, flapping his pinions as he shrieks from his rock when the tempest-cloud passes by, is not a more striking picture than this little bird, when, with his anxieties all centred in the cradle of his young ones, he stands in ‘his pride of place,’ on the limb of his palm, towering high above all other trees, and battling with the breeze that rocks it, and, rush after rush as the wind sweeps onward, flutters his wings with every jerk of the branches, and screams like a fury. ”

“ The Bald Eagle—king of the birds—will sweep in majestic curves around the turret pinnacles of the Alpine Heights or, poised on outspread wings, will survey his unassailable ancestral domain and, if in the garish light of day, the utter loneliness and wildness of the mountains oppress the imagination, the gloaming and the tender moonbeams will mellow the savage grandeur of the scene and invest it with a dreamy and mystical beauty to soften and enhance its sublimity. ”

“ The Great Eagle, he knew, would swoop down upon him and kill him with a blow of his powerful beak and claws. But when the boy slept, he saw his mother in his slumber. And she said to him, "To-morrow when Great Eagle goes from the nest, brace your knife, point upwards, against the rock. When he swoops down to kill you his breast will strike the knife, and he will be pierced to death. You are not strong enough to cut through his feathers with your knife, but he is powerful enough to destroy himself." The next morning when Great Eagle went out, the boy did as the vision of the night had told him. ”

“ Twenty thousand men in solid columns going across the plain at steady step, with drums beating, the Austrians pouring shot and shell into us. You could hear the bullets crash through the breasts of the division like glass. My arm was numb from the bullet which struck the Eagle, but I changed hands and carried it forward. ”

“ The great strength, daring, and cool courage of the White-headed Eagle, joined to his unequalled power of flight, render him highly conspicuous among his brethren. To these qualities did he add a generous disposition towards others, he might be looked up to as a model of nobility. The ferocious, overbearing, and tyrannical temper which is ever and anon displaying itself in his actions, is, nevertheless, best adapted to his state, and was wisely given him by the Creator to enable him to perform the office assigned to him. ”