EAGLE, a name given to many birds of prey in the family Falconidm and the order Accipitres. The golden eagle, the white-headed eagle and the sea eagles are characteristic examples. The falcon family includes over 300 preda ceous birds, feeding for the most part on living animals, hunting by day, and living usually on exposed rocky places.
They are cosmopolitan in distribution. The bill is powerful, but rather short, high at the root, and slightly curved; the partition between the nostrils is complete; the upper margin of the eye cartilaginous frame-work. The deep, capacious central space to several grooves converge is termed the concha, and the lowest and pendulous portion of the ear is termed the lobe. The audi tory canal passes from the concha in ward and a little forward for rather more than an inch. It is narrower at the middle than at either extremity; and on this account there is often consider able difficulty in extracting foreign bodies which have been inserted into it. The membrane of the tympanum or drum which terminates it is placed obliquely, in consequence of the lower surface of the meatus being longer than the upper. The canal is partly cartila
ginous and partly osseus; the osseus portion consisting, in the foetus, of a ring of bone, across which the mem brane is stretched, and in many animals remaining persistently as a separate bone. The orifice of the meatus is con cealed by a pointed process, which pro jects from the facial direction over it like a valve, and which is called the tra gus, probably from sometimes being covered with bristly hair like that of a goat (tragus) ; and it is further de fended by an abundance of ceruminous glands, which furnish an adhesive, yel low, and bitter secretion, the cerumen or wax, which entangles small insects, socket projects; the head and neck are feathered; the soles of the feet bear large callosities. It is a matter of much difficulty to separate the eagles defi nitely from the related falcons, buz zards, kites, and hawks.