During the wars between the Christians and the Moors, of Spain, a Spanish knight engaged in combat with a gigantic Moslem. The conflict remained undecided for a long time, but at last the Spaniard began to lose ground. At this juncture an eagle, swooping from above, flew into the face of the Moorish giant, and, taking advantage of this sudden and miraculous intervention, the Spanish champion plunged his sword into the heart of his antagonist, thus winning the battle.

Rudolph, count of Hapsburg, one morning was looking out of his castle window upon the surrounding country, and while thus engaged noticed an eagle circling strangely above a certain place in the forest. Taking some men at arms he proceeded to the spot, where he found a beautiful and high-born lady held captive by a band of robbers. He rescued her and afterwards married her. When a new emperor was wanted in Germany he obtained the election through the influence of his wife's relatives. In this romantic fashion began the glory of the present reigning house of Austria.

I have alluded to the prominence of eagles in the arms of nations and individuals. The famous ensign of the Roman legions verified the text of Scripture when, in referring to the eagle, job says: "Where the slain are there is she," for the Roman bird flew over nearly the whole known world and delighted in destruction and in threatening it. The Byzantine Caesars sported a double-headed eagle to indicate that they were lords of both the Eastern and the Western world. The Russians adopted the symbol from those princes. 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. This is rather a bad character for our national bird.

The ancients would probably be horrified at such a criticism of their royal bird, and, after all., it is not surprising that they held him in such reverence. These people of the long ago had no books nor newspapers, but they were proficient students in the book of nature. By them the birds were accounted prophets, and by their varied flights they foretold future events and regulated the movements and enterprises of nations.

We call the wisdom of birds instinct, but they considered it divine intelligence. Nor was it strange that they should take them for the interpreters of fate, seeing that in many things the birds were wiser than themselves, for they seemed to have a knowledge of the future that was denied to man.

We have some idea of how these people regarded the movements of the birds from one of the ancient Greek writers, who, in a play entitled "The Birds," makes them give the following account of themselves: "We point out to man the work of each season. When the crow takes his flight across the Mediterranean it is seed-time — time for the pilot to season his timber. The kite tells you when you ought to shear your sheep; the swallow shows you when you ought to sell your watch-coats, and buy light dresses for the summer. We birds are the hinge of everything you do. We regulate your merchandise, your eating and drinking, and your marriages."

This Greek play-writer probably voiced the sentiments of the majority of the people, who had implicit faith in what they called "the prophecies of the birds;" and it is not surprising that they endowed the eagle — the king of the feathered tribes — with almost supernatural wisdom.