THE WHITE-HEADED SEA EAGLE. 69 



contrary, where tlie EiU'opean specimen seems to be unknown, it is met with ui great 

 abundance, as well on the sea-coast as on the banks of the broad lakes and rapid rivers, 

 from which the chief part of its sustenance is derived. 



This bird selects a very tall tree, usually a pine or a cypress, and keeps to the same 

 nest, season after season, for a long period. The best accomit of this structure, however, 

 is found in the far-famed American ornithology. 



" In the month of May," says Wilson, " while on a shooting excursion along the sea- 

 coast not far from Great Egg Harbour, accompanied by my friend Mr. Ord, we were 

 conducted about a mile into the woods to see an eagle's nest. On approaching within 

 a short distance of the place, the bird was perceived slowly retreating from the nest, 

 which we found occupied the centre of the top of a very large yellow pine. The woods 

 were cut down, and cleared ofi" for several rods around the spot, which circumstance gave 

 the stately, erect trunk, and large, crooked, wriggling branches of the tree, sui-mounted 

 by a black mass of sticks and brush, a very singular and picturesque effect. Our con- 

 ductor had brought an axe with him to cut down the tree ; but my companion, anxious 

 to save the eggs, or young, insisted on ascending to the nest, which he fearlessly per- 

 formed, wliile we stationed ourselves below, ready to defend him in case of an attack 

 from the old eagles. No opposition, however, was offered ; and on reaching the nest, it 

 was found, to our disaj)pointmeut, emj^ty. It was built of large sticks, some of them 

 several feet in length ; within it lay sods of earth, sedge, grass, dry reeds, &c., piled 

 to the height of five or six feet, by more than four in breadth ; it was well lined with 

 fresh pine tops, and had httle or no concavity. Under this linmg lay the recent exuviae 

 of the yoimg of the present year, such as scales of the quill, feathers, down, &c. Our 

 guide had passed this place late in February, at which time both male and female were 

 making a great noise about the nest ; and, from what we afterwards learnt, it is highly 

 probable it contained young even at that early time of the season." 



" The following year," says Mr. Ord, " on the first day of March, a friend of ours 

 took from the same nest three eggs, the largest of which measured three inches and a 

 quarter in length, two and a quarter in diameter, upwards of seven in circumference, 

 and weighed four ounces, five drachms, apothecaries' weight ; the colour, a dirty yellowish 

 white, one was of a very pale bluish white ; the young were perfectly formed. Such was 

 the sohcitude of the female to preserve her eggs, that she did not abandon the nest untU 

 several blows with an axe had been given the tree." 



" A few miles from this," continues Wilson, " is another eagle's nest, built also on 

 a pine tree, which, from the information received from the proprietor of the woods, had 

 been long the residence of this family of eagles. The tree on wliich the nest was orig- 

 inally built had been from time immemorial, or at least ever since he remembered, 

 inhabited by these eagles. Some of his sons cut down this tree to procure the young, 

 which were two in number ; and the eagle soon after commenced building another nest 

 on the very next adjoining tree, thus exhibiting a vei-y particular attachment to the 

 spot. The eagles, he says, make it a kind of home and lodging place in all seasons. 

 This man asserts, that the gray, or sea eagles, are the young of the bald eagles, and 

 that they are several years old before they begin to breed. It does not drive its young 

 from the nest like the osprey or fish-hawk ; but continues to feed them long after they 

 leave it." 



It would appear that this eagle is partial to the vicinity of cataracts, great numbers 

 of them frequenting the falls of Niagara ; and in Lewis and Clark's expedition, we meet 

 with the following account of one of their nests, which must have added not a little to 



