BALD EAGLE. 25 



Harbor, in New Jersey ; but the garment seized upon by the 

 Eagle giving way at the instant of the attempt, the life of the 

 child was spared. I have heard of another instance, said to 

 have happened at Petersburgh, in Georgia, near the Savannah 

 River, where an infant, sleeping in the shade near the house, 

 was seized and carried to the eyry near the edge of a swamp 

 five miles distant, and when found, almost immediately, the 

 child was dead. The story of the Eagle and child, in " The 

 History of the House of Stanley," the origin of the crest of 

 that family, shows the credibility of the exploit, as supposed to 

 have been effected by the White-tailed Eagle, so nearly related 

 to the present. Indeed, about the year 1 745 some Scotch 

 reapers, accompanied by the wife of one of them with an 

 infant, repaired to an island in Loch Lomond ; the mother laid 

 down her child in the shade at no great distance from her, and 

 while she was busily engaged in labor, an Eagle of this kind 

 suddenly darted upon the infant and immediately bore it away 

 to its rocky eyry on the summit of Ben Lomond. The alarm 

 of this shocking event was soon spread ; and a considerable 

 party, hurrying to the rescue, fortunately succeeded in recover- 

 ing the child alive. 



The Bald Eagle, like most of the large species, takes wide 

 circuits in its flight, and soars at great heights. In these sub- 

 lime attitudes he may often be seen hovering over waterfalls 

 and lofty cataracts, particularly that of the famous Niagara, 

 where he watches for the fate of those unfortunate fish and 

 other animals that are destroyed in the descent of the tumul- 

 tuous waters. 



All ornithologists of the present day agree in the opinion that 

 Audubon's " Bird of Washington " was an immature Bald Eagle, 

 — the difference in size and coloration accounting for the error. 



Nuttal!, following Audubon, wrote of the two phases as of dis- 

 tinct species ; for it was not until about 1870 that washingtoni was 

 dropped from the lists. I have given the two biographies as they 

 appeared in the original work, for together they form a good his- 

 tory of the bird's distinctive habits. The difference in habits noted 

 is not due to difference of age, as might be supposed, but to the 

 different conditions under which the birds chanced to be observed. 



