They are excessively lascivious, so that they go together more than thirty times a day, not only with their own kind, but even with the female hawks and she wolves (wolvinnen). They hatch out the large eggs in thirty, and the small in twenty days. They usually breed two to three young, whose eyes they turn towards the sun's rays. If these regard the light of heaven without blinking they bring them up, otherwise, those that cannot stand such a test are drove from the nest. The young, as soon as they begin to fly, are taken up into the air and, left there to themselves, are sustained by the old birds, who drive them away whenever they are fit to strike at game. Their sharp sightedness

is most remarkable, for lifted up in the clouds far beyond the

eye of man, they perceive the smallest fish in the river, anda skulking harein thestubble. Their breath stinks badly, wherefore the carcasses on which they feed rot rapidly, and though lascivious they are long lived : they die mostly of hunger, as the bill becomes by age so crooked that they cannot open any thing. Whereupon they finally fly to the highest regions towards the sun, tumble down into the coldest stream ; they pluck out their feathers, clammy with sweat, and thus breathe their last. But, besides the enumerated birds of prey, there is

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DESCRIPTION OF NEW NETHERLAND. 123

here an innumerable amount of herons, bitterns, ravens, crows, owls, swallows, finches, king fishers, hedge sparrows, woodcozks,