270 Sketches of So7iie Common Birds. 



adjoiniDg regions. It is not commonly known that tlie 

 osprey ever feeds on anything else but fish, but Mr. F. W. 

 Andros, a careful observer and an accurate writer, asserts 

 that it hunts over the pastures for field mice, frogs, toads, 

 and snakes.* 



BALD EAGLE. 



No bird has been the subject of more improbable stories 

 or has been more frequently misrepresented in accounts 

 of its habits than the ill-chosen emblem of our national 

 genius, the white-headed eagle. In many of its traits it 

 is scarcely more noble than the vultures; in others it dis- 

 covers a true nobility of nature and exhibits great daring 

 and unfaltering courage. We often read of the eagle as 

 holding some inaccessible shelf on a perpendicular cliff, 

 from which it sallies forth to seize any child neglected by 

 its mother or companions. The real fact is, however, that 

 while the bald eagle is generally found in mountainous 

 regions, and in rare instances attacks small children and 

 even men, when impelled by fierce hunger, in its general 

 habits it is not much unlike the larger buzzard-hawks, 

 whose sluggish natures and cowardly dispositions are well 

 known. It nests more frequently in trees than in other 

 situations, and its lazy temperament leads it at times to 

 feed on dead fish and game rather than to exert itself in 

 the capture of fresh game. Frequently, however, it is 

 the embodiment of lordly pride and regal power. Then 

 it is the real "bird of Jove," falling upon the flocks of 

 water-fowls which have failed to keep the upper air, and 

 sweeping away with its victim with irresistible impet- 

 uosity. In fact, its habits show the extremes of energy 

 and indolence, of noble instinct and depraved tastes. It 

 is not improbable that the birds of mountainous regions 

 discover traits more in keeping with the royal attributes 

 ascribed to the eagle, the greater struggle for existence in 

 the wilder localities conducing to render the individuals 

 in mountain strongholds fiercer and bolder than the birds 

 of the prairies. 



•^Ornithologist and Oologist, September, 1886. 



