As I had myself a desire of more intimate acquaintance with him, I loaded a rifle-gun with ball, and sat down close to the platter by the meat. It was not many minutes before he came, and a prodigious shout was raised by my attendants, He is coming, he is coming, enough to have discouraged a less courageous animal. Whether he was not quite so hungry as at the first visit, or suspected something from my appearance, I know not, but he made a small turn, and sat down about ten yards from me, the pan with the meat being between me and him. As the field was clear before me, and I did not know but his next move might bring him opposite to some of my people, and so that he might actually get the rest of the meat and make off, I shot him with the ball through the middle of his body about two inches below the wing, so that he lay down upon the grass without a single flutter. Upon laying hold of his monstrous carcase, I was not a little surprised at seeing my hands covered and tinged with yellow powder or dust. Upon turning him upon his belly, and examining the feathers of his back, they produced a brown dust, the colour of the feathers there. This dust was not in small quantities, for, upon striking his breast, the yellow powder flew in fully greater quantity than from a hair-dresser’s powderpuff. The feathers of the belly and breast, which were of a gold colour, did not appear to have any thing extraordinary in their formation, but the large feathers in the shoulder and wings seemed apparently to be fine tubes, which upon pressure scattered this dust upon the finer part of the feather, but this was brown, the colour of the feathers of the back. Upon the side of the wing, the ribs, or hard part of the feather, seemed to be bare as if worn, or, I rather think, were renewing themselves, having before failed in their function. What is the reason of this extraordinary provision of nature is not in my power to determine. As it is an unusual one, it is probably meant for a defence against the climate in favour of those birds which live in those almost inaccessible heights of a country, doomed, even in its lower parts, to several months of excessive rain. The pigeons we saw upon Lamalmon, had not this dust in their feathers, nor had the quails; from which I guess these to be strangers, or birds of passage, that had no need of this provision, created for the wants of the indigenous, such as this eagle is, for he is unknown in the low country. That same day I shot a heron, in nothing different from ours, only that he was smaller, who had upon his breast and back a blue powder, in full as great quantity as that of the eagle. [Illustration: _Nisser Tokoor._ _London Publish’d De.^r 1.^{st} 1789. by G. Robinson & Co._] BLACK EAGLE.