Leviticus 11:13

13. The eagle The Hebrew nesher here denotes a particular species of the falconidae, namely, the griffon or great vulture, as distinguished from other raptorial birds of the same genus. Four kinds of eagles have been observed in Palestine the golden, the spotted, the imperial, and the ospray. The eagle is large, strong, swift, fierce, and rapacious. His cry is the terror of every wing. His eye is large, dark, and piercing; his sight keen and directly at the sun; his beak powerful and hooked; his wings are broad and powerful; and his claws long and sharp.

The ossifrage The English term signifies the bone-breaker, the Hebrew peres, the breaker. This bird is spoken of only here and in the parallel passage Deuteronomy 14:12.

His habits are indicated by his name, for not only does he push kids and lambs, and even men, off the rocks, but he takes the bones of animals denuded of their flesh by other birds of prey high up into the air, and lets them fall upon a stone to crack, and render more digestible for even his enormous powers of deglutition. “I have repeatedly watched a pair of Lammergeirs, which had an eyrie close to our camp, pass and repass in front of our tents for hours at a time, invariably dropping something upon a smooth ledge of rocks hard by. For several days we imagined that these were sticks they were carrying to their nest; for prompt as we were in endeavouring to reach the spot first, the birds swooped down like lightning and seized their quarry again. At length we caught a serpent writhing and dislocated, which we had taken for a stick, and found that our imagined stones were tortoises, which had to be dropped a dozen times before the shell was sufficiently shattered.” Tristram.

The ospray The Hebrew ozniyyah. It is difficult to identify this bird. Some think that the fish-eating haliaeetus is intended, others, the melanaeetus, or black eagle of Aristotle; while other writers identify the ospray with the hatiaeetus albicilla, or white tailed sea-eagle. Tristram suggests that it is the very abundant circaetos gallicus, which feeds upon reptiles.