Eagle (for lecterns in churches)

The eagle is the natural enemy of the serpent. The two Testaments are the two outspread wings of the eagle.

⁂ Pliny in his Natural History (book x. chap. 3) enumerates six kinds of eagles: (1) Melænactos, (2) Pygargus, (3) Morphnos, which Homer (Iliad, xxiv. 316) calls perknos, (4) Percnopterus, (5) Gnesios, the royal eagle, and (6) Haliæetos, the osprey.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.