36 WHITE-HEADED EAGLE. 



the signal for our hero, who, launching into the air, instantly gives chace, 

 soon gains on the Fish-Hawk^each exerts his utmost to mount ahove the 

 other, displaying in these rencounters the most elegant and sublime 

 aerial evolutions. The unencumbered Eagle rapidly advances, and is 

 just on the point of reaching his opponent, when, with a sudden scream, 

 probably of despair and honest execration, the latter drops his fish ; 

 the Eagle poising himself for a moment, as if to take a more certain 

 aim, descends like a whirlwind, snatches it in his grasp ere it reaches 

 the water, and bears his ill-gotten booty silently away to the woods. 



These predatory attacks, and defensive manoeuvres, of the Eagle and 

 the Fish-Hawk, are matters of daily observation along the whole of our 

 seacoast, from Florida to New England ; and frequently excite great in- 

 terest in the spectators. Sympathy, however, on this, as on most other 

 occasions, generally sides with the honest and laborious suiferer, in oppo- 

 sition to the attacks of power, injustice and rapacity ; qualities for 

 which our hero is so generally notorious, and which, in his supex'ior, 

 man, are certainly detestable. As for the feelings of the poor fish, they 

 seem altogether out of the question. 



When driven, as he sometimes is, by the combined courage and 

 perseverance of the Fish-Hawks from their neighborhood, and forced to 

 hunt for himself, he retires more inland, in search of young pigs, of 

 which he destroys great numbers. In the lower parts of Virginia and 

 North Carolina, where the inhabitants raise vast herds of those animals, 

 complaints of this kind are very general against him. He also de- 

 stroys young lambs in the early part of spring ; ,and Avill sometimes 

 attack old sickly sheep, aiming furiously at their eyes. 



In corroboration of the remarks I have myself made on the manners 

 of the Bald Eagle, many accounts have reached me from various 

 persons of respectability, living on or near our seacoast ; the sub- 

 stance of all these I shall endeavor to incorporate with the present 

 account. 



* Mr. John L. Gardiner, who resides on an island of three thousand 

 acres, about three miles from the eastern point of Long Island, from 

 which it is separated by Gardiner's Bay, and who has consequently 

 many opportunities of observing the habits of these birds, has favored 

 me with a number of interesting particulars on this subject ; for which 

 I beg leave thus publicly to return my grateful acknowledgment. 



"The Bald Eagles," says this gentleman, "remain on this island 

 during the whole winter. They can be most easily discovered on even- 

 ings by their loud snoring while asleep, on high oak trees ; and when 

 awake, their hearing seems to be nearly as good as their sight. I think 

 I mentioned to you that I had myself seen one flying with a /amb ten 

 days old, and which it dropped on the ground, from about ten or twelve 

 feet high. The struggling of the lamb, more than its weight, prevented 



