most automatically, without direction from his brain. Without fatigue, almost without effort, he could remain aloft for hours, sailing in great circles or wide ellipses, keeping the same level or, if the air currents were favorable, spiraling gradually upward until he approached the invisible upper frontier of his airy kingdom beyond which even the eagle cannot soar.
On this bright mid-spring morning drowsiness possessed him. Spring was a season of plenty when his unwilling purveyors, the ospreys, were numerous and industrious, yielding him a rich tribute of finny spoils. Although in winter he varied his fare by catching unwary coots or wounded ducks, fish had always been his favorite food; and now, with fish plentiful and easily obtained and with the labors of the nesting season behind him, the tyrant had abundant time for idleness and rest. Shortly after sunrise he had breakfasted upon a large mullet which an indignant osprey had surrendered to him. Then, languidly, lazily he had climbed to his high kingdom to spend the rest of the morning circling somnolently just under the motionless white clouds.
For nearly two hours the gray eagle had been soaring thus, more than half-asleep. Suddenly, his drowsiness fell from him. Far below him and to the south, a black speck was moving swiftly through the air. To his far-sighted eyes that speck had the
