Does the eagle have feet of a duck?

[WoodenJefferson]

 

The Times in 1928 reported that Captain Charles Knight, an English Naturalist and bird photographer, had said the American eagle on the quarter "has the feet of a wading bird, like a duck, and is in the act of taking off instead of in full flight as it should be to symbolize the majesty and power of a progressive and independent nation."

 

Knight had been lecturing and showing his film "Filming the Golden Eagle" to museums and geographic societies for three months. His complaint was that in full flight, it tucks its talons up underneath its body, not stretched back "like a duck's feet. It is the symbol of might and dignity, and yet the designer has given the grand old bird the feet of a duck."

 

H. A. MacNeil, the quarter's designer, answered Knight a few days later in the Times' Letters to the Editor section. He described Knight's observation as the "perennial question of the position of the feet of the eagle in flight" on the quarter.

 

As designer he was interested in the question. But he said no ornithologist could prove to him that the eagle's feet were tucked up underneath its body. Moreover, he had a photo showing a high-flying eagle with its feet trailing. He continued, "As a matter of fact this bird could fly with its feet swung either forward or back."

 

But he said of his depiction of the eagle as a symbol, "I did not place the eagle's feet forward, as it immediately bespeaks a warlike bird ready to pounce on its prey. The United States is not a warlike country preying on weaker nations."

He ends with, "As Captain Knight truly says, we read into this bird the symbols of might and dignity. Why not also the symbol of peace?"

 

On the fifteenth, Captain Knight answered that though it was "so pleasing an explanation" he still felt it was "a pity to give that eagle...feet which impart to it an air of purposelessness." He continued, had he seen an eagle "with the drooping legs of the bird on the coin I should have concluded that the unhappy creature could not be in good health."

 

He concluded, "But let me assure Mr. MacNeil that no one would be more distressed than I should be to see your eagle in an aggressive mood!"

 

All this banter in 1928, 12 years after the coin had entered circulation. I say the talons probably are much more forward these days as we more and more attempt to be the policemen of the world, but we still offer a olive branch as a symbol of peace.

I wonder what Captain Charles Knight would have thought about or Sacagawea dollar reverse designed by Mint Engraver Thomas D. Rogers and brought forth 78 years later?

[cpm9ball]

East of the Mississippi River, Florida has the largest population of Bald Eagles. I have seen them relatively close and with binoculars. In most cases, their talons were trailing. Maybe the eagle's he observed were in Alaska and their feet were cold. The eagle on our current coinage with its talons forward is due to the fact that it is about to land on the nest.

 

Chris

[RWB]

A similar discussion occurred when the first Saint-Gaudens $20s made it into circulation and again in about April (I think) 1917 with the new quarter design. MacNeil later produced photos taken in the Adirondacks showing eagles flying with feet to the back, just as on his quarter.

 

Does anyone know if this discussion also occurred in 1836 or 1857?

[Hoot]

Bald eagles and all raptors fly with their feet tucked back until the point at which they make impact with prey. The 1928 naturalist was more of a sensationalist.

 

Hoot