The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-03-10
HERE'S A oUgge BIRD STORY.
It Cast Gloom over an Otherwise
Enjoyable Dinner Party.
From the NelO York Times.


From the Neo York Tines.
81 sse agreat deal Of talk in the papers
every little while" sail a man vino has
built many mile Of railroads ard contract
ed for any M nbs- of big engineering en-
tsrprises, "about the foolslness Of having
the eagle as the emblem of our country.
He is represented as a cowardly, thievish,
unintelligent bird, and any number of
other fowls of the air are put forward IS
candidates for the proud position of the
nations bird. Now am no5 an ornith OIL
ogist, 50 l am not prepared to argue over
tbs relative merits Of the different flyers,
and / must confess that the eagle is thief
always and a coward very OFTEN, but that
ne is lacking in intelligence most emphati-
cally deny. Let me tell you one little story
OF him that puts him in very favorable
light
The speaker was on of little party that
had just finished dinner at an uptown hotel
few evenings ago, and his companions
jumped at the chance of hearing an IN
teresting tale over their cigars.
about twenty years ago" he began, "I
was engaged in building a big western
road, and one spring day we pitched our
camp on the banks of one Of the turbulent
| rivers Of the region and settled down for a
three mouths job on the ravine bridge. A
few days later we noticed an eagles nest
| perched up the bluff across the river, and
| the following Sunday two of our men
swan the stream during the absence of the
old birds and brought back two vigorous
| eaglets with them.
I'VE hurrisdly patched up pen of pine
| slabs for the captlves, making it about
seven feet square and leaving lots Of space
between the slabs On the top and sides, 80
that we could have good look at the
| squalling punches OF feathers. The parent
birds came back about noon, and when they
found their little ones gone they
kicked up a frightfuI row and few
about in search Of them as if
they were distracted When they
| finally discovered where the eaglets
were they cir led arou ID in the air over the
pen, keeping out of reach Of our rifles, and
| shrieked advice to their chicks about keep
| ing up their spunk and making themselves
comfortable as plainly as human beings
could
Then the old birds flew away and came
back ter little with two big fish in
their talons. They circled and circled
| around over the pen, and finally let the fish
drop straight as a die right between the
slabs in the roof. They kept up this per-
formence every day for fortnight, and
never Ia all that time did they miss hitting
the pen with the fish they dropped. Their
parental affection and intelligence 50
worked on US that we put the eagets back
on the other side of the river again, and
tell you it was really affecting to see the
way those two old birds hung around and
caressed their offspring. They seemed to
understand after that that we were friendly
to them, and during the rest of the tins we
| were there they flew all about the camp.
and had no hesitation in coming down to
pick up the scraps of meat and fish we
would throw to them. l can't say that
they shed tears over our departure, but
will warrant tlat they felt the pangs of
separation as keenly as we did,