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54 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
on the branch, he watches the result. Down, rapid as an arrow 
from heaven, descends the distant object of his attention; the roar 
of its wings reaching the ear as it disappears in the deep, making 
the surges foam around. At this moment, the eager looks of the 
Eagle are all ardor; and, levelling his neck for flight, he sees 
the Fish-hawk once more emerge, struggling with his prey, and 
mounting in the air with screams of exultation. These are the 
signal for our hero, who, launching into the air, instantly gives 
chase, and soon gains on the Fish-hawk: each exerts his utmost to 
mount above the other, displaying in these rencontres the most 
elegant and sublime aérial 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 whirl- 
wind, 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 manceuvres of the 
Eagle and the Fish-hawk are matters of daily observation along 
the whole of our seaboard, from Georgia to New England, and 
frequently excite great interest in the spectators. Sympathy, 
however, on this as on most other occasions, generally sides with 
the honest and laborious sufferer, in opposition to the attacks 
of power, injustice, and rapacity ; qualities for which our hero is 
so generally notorious, and which, in his superior, man, are cer- 
tainly detestable. As for the feelings of the poor fish, they seem 
altogether out of the question. 
“When driven, as he sometimes is, by the cgmbined 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 destroys young lambs in the early 
part of spring; and will sometimes attack old sickly sheep, aiming 
furiously at their eyes.” 
It generally chooses for a breeding-place a retired spot 
in the neighborhood of a tract of water. The nest is 
