THE WEDGE-TAILED EAGLE. 



75 



fish-hawk. This day's sport being at au end, as we jounieycd homewards wc agi-eed to 

 return tiie next morning, being most anxious to procure both the old and young birds ; 

 but rainy and tempestuous weatlier setting in, our expedition was obUged to be postponed 

 till the third day following, when, with guns and men all in readiness, we reached the 

 i-ock. Some posted themselves at the foot, others upon it, but in vain. We passed the 

 entire day without cither seeing or hearing the eagle ; the sagacious birds, no doubt, 

 liaving anticipated an invasion, had removed their young to fresh quarters. I come at 

 last to the day I had so often and so ardently desired. Two years had gone by smce 

 the discovery of the nest, in fruitless excursions ; but my wishes were no longer to 

 remain ungratified. In returning from the httle village of Henderson to the house of 



Dr. R , about a mile distant, I saw one rise from a small inclosure not a hundred 



yards before me, where the doctor had, a few days before, slaughtered some hogs, and 

 alight upon a low tree branching over the road. I prepared my double-liarrelled piece, 

 which I constantly carry, and went slowly and cautiously towards him ; quite fearless he 

 awiiited my approach, looking upon me with an undaunted eye. I fired, and he fell ; 

 before I reached him, he was dead. With what delight I surveyed tliis magnificent bird ! 

 I ran and presented him to my friend, with a pride which those can only feel, who, like 

 me, have devoted their earliest childhood to such pursuits, and have derived from them 

 their first pleasures ; to others, I must seem ' to prattle out of fasliion.' The doctor, 

 who was an experienced hunter, examined the bird with much satisfaction, and frankly 

 acknowledged he had never before seen or heard of it. The name I chose for this new 

 species of eagle, was ' The bird of Washington,' from its being indisputably the noblest 

 of the genus known to naturalists." * 



THE WEDOE-TAILED EAGLE. f 



The Wedge-tailed Eagle may be regarded as the type of a distinct form in the family 

 to which it belongs. It agrees with the genuine eagles of the Old World in most pomts 

 of its general structure, and more particularly in its lengthened wings and feathered legs, 

 but difiering from them m the character from which it derives its name. The middle 

 feathers of the tail exceed the outermost by about four mches, and hence it has a wedge- 

 ' shaped tenmnation. This form is pecuhar to the continent of New Holland, where this 

 bii-d appears exclusively to occupy the place of the even-tailed species of the Em-opean 

 and Asiatic group, none of which have been hitherto detected on any part of the Aus- 

 tralian coast. 



The earUest account of this eagle was given in " Collins's English Colony in New South 

 Wales in 1802," but the wedge-shaped termniation of the tail appears to have been over- 

 looked. The mdividual engraved in that work was captured by Captam Waterhouse in an 



* Loudon's Mag. of Nat. Hist. i. p. 1 18. t Aquila Fiicosa. Cuv. 



