Genre:

Essay, Drollery

Subjects:

Ornithology, Natural History, Politics, Cultural Geography, Animal Behaviour

People mentioned:

Georges L Leclerc (comte de Buffon)

    Details the appearance and habits of the Russian eagle which, unsurprisingly, emerges in a most unflattering light. For example, it is described as a 'nondescript creature, uniting the voracity of the vulture with the malice of the magpie, and the thievery of the raven', a bird which 'from its devotional attitude [...] may be strictly called a bird of pray'. In its diet it 'is thought to exhibit a trait of the vampire' since it sucks 'the life-blood of the country which it broods over'.