according to Tschudi, raise even a sheep from the ground. He cannot, when flying, carry a weight exceeding eight or ten pounds.

5. The voracity of the obscene bird is very great. The owner of some captive specimens assured the naturalist that he had given to one, in the course of a single day, by way of experiment, eighteen pounds of meat, consisting of the entrails of oxen; that the bird devoured the whole and ate his allowance the next day with the usual appetite.

6. Except when rising from the ground, I do not recollect ever having seen one of these birds flap its wings. Near Lima I watched several for nearly half an hour without once taking off my eyes. They moved in large curves, sweeping in circles, descending and ascending without once flapping. As they glided close over my head, I intently watched from an oblique position the outlines of the separate and terminal feathers of the wing. If there had been the least vibratory movement, these would have blended together; but they were seen distinct against the blue sky. It is truly wonderful to see so great a bird, hour after hour, and without any apparent exertion, wheeling and gliding over mountain and river.

GOSSE AND Darwin.

1. THIS noted bird, as he is the most beautiful of his tribe and the adopted emblem of our country, is entitled to particular notice. He has long been known to naturalists, being common to both continents, and occasionally met with from a very high latitude to the borders of the torrid zone, but chiefly in the vicinity of the sea and along the shores and cliffs of our lakes and large rivers.

2. Formed by nature for braving the severest cold; feeding equally on the produce of the sea and of the land; possessing powers of flight capable of outstripping even the tempests themselves; unawed by anything but man; and, 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, he appears indifferent to local changes of season, as in a few minutes he can pass from summer to winter, from the lower to the higher regions, the abode of eternal cold,—and thence descend at will to the torrid or the arctic regions of the earth.

3. In procuring these, he displays in a very singular manner the genius and energy of his characte`, which is fierce, contemplative, daring, and tyrannical, attributes not exerted save on particular occasions, but, when put forth, overwhelming all opposition. Elevated upon a high, dead limb of some gigantic tree, that commar is a wide

view of the neighboring shore and ocean, he seems calmly to contemplate the motions of the various feathered tribes that pursue their busy avocations below: the snow-white gulls, slowly winnowing the air; the busy sand-pipers, coursing along the beach; trains of ducks, streaming over the surface; silent and watchful cranes, intent and wading; clamorous crows, and all the winged multitudes that subsist by the bounty of this vast liquid magazine of nature.

4. High over all these hovers one whose action instantly arrests his attention. By his wide curvature of wing and sudden suspension in air, he knows him to be the fishhawk, settling over some devoted victim of the deep. His eye kindles at the sight, and, balancing himself with halfopened wings on the branch, he watches the result. Down, rapid as an arrow from heaven, descends the distant object of his attention, the roar of its wings reaching the ear as it disappears in the deep, making the surges foam around.

5. At this moment the looks of the eagle are all ardor, and, leveling his neck for flight, he sees the fish-hawk emerge, struggling with his prey, and mounting into the air with screams of exultation. These are the signal for our hero, who, launching into the air, instantly gives chase, and soon gains on the fish-hawk. Each exerts his utmost to mount above the other, displaying in these rencounters the most elegant and sublime aerial evolutions.

6. The unencumbered eagle rapidly advances, and is just on the point of reaching his opponent, when, with a sudden scream, probably of despair and honest execration, the latter drops his fish. The eagle, poising himself for a moment

as if to take a more certain aim, descends like a whirlwind, snatches it in his grasp ere it reaches the water, and bears his ill-gotten booty silently away to the woods.

ALEXANDER WILSON.

IN the hollow tree, in the old gray tower,
The spectral owl doth dwell;

Dull, hated, despised in the sunshine hour,
But at dusk he's abroad and well!

Not a bird of the forest e'er mates with him,-
All mock him outright by day;

But at night, when the woods grow still and dim,
The boldest will shrink away.

Oh, when the night falls, and roosts the fowl,
Then, then is the reign of the horned owl!