Questions are proposed after this is read, and thus the examination proceeds:—­Q.  What is that?  A. An eagle.  Q. What sort of a bird is he?  A. He is big and strong.  Q. What are those?  A. His feathers.  Q. What else are they called?  A. His plumage.  Q. Is the eagle a small bird?  A. No, very large.  Q. Are his claws long and sharp?  A. Yes.  Q. What animals could he carry away?  A. A lamb, a hare, a rabbit, or other small animals.  Q. What does he do with those?  A. Feed his young ones.  Q. Where does the eagle make his nest?  A. On the side of some rock.  Q. Why does he make it there?  A. That no one may get at it.  Q. Used there to be eagles in Wales?  A. Yes.  Q. Where are there a few still?  A. In England, Scotland, and Ireland.  Q. Why are they not as plentiful as they were?  A. Because they do not like to be where many men live.  Q. Did the Almighty give man dominion over the birds of the air?  A. Yes.  Q. What other power did he give man?  A. Power to think.  Q. As men can think, when the eagles became troublesome, what did they do?  A. They caught them.  Q. And what did the eagles that were not caught do?  A. They went to places where men were not so plenty.  Q. Are, there many different kinds of eagles?  A. Yes.  Q. Name some.  A. The black eagle, the bald eagle, the sea eagle, and others.

THE VULTURE.

The vulture is like the eagle in size, and some of its habits; but it is so very different from it in many ways, that there is little danger of confusing the two together:  the greatest distinction between them is, that the head of the vulture is either quite naked, or covered only with a short down, while the eagle’s is well feathered.  This is the chief difference in appearance, but in their habits there is a much greater.  Instead of flying over hills and valleys in pursuit of living game, the vultures only search for dead carcasses, which they prefer, although they may have been a long time dead, and therefore very bad, and smelling very offensively.  They generally live in very warm countries, and are useful in clearing away those dead carcasses which, but for them, would cause many dreadful diseases.  In some countries, indeed, on account of this, the inhabitants will not allow any one to injure them, and they are called for this reason scavengers, which means that they do the business for which scavengers are employed.  Vultures are very greedy and ravenous; they will often eat so much that they are not able to move or fly, but sit quite stupidly and insensible.  One of them will often, at a single meal, devour the entire body of an albatross (bones and all), which is a bird nearly as large as the vulture itself.  They will smell a dead carcass at a very great distance, and will soon surround and devour it.

Vultures lay two eggs at a time and only once a year:  they build their nests on the same kind of places as eagles do, so that it is very hard to find them.