WHITE- TAILED EAGLE. 177 



gained for this bird ; but though delighting in 

 fish, and often procuring this kind of food, we 

 have no record by an eye-witness how the scaiy 

 prey is seized ; it is not a true fisher like the 

 Osprey, its structure is very different, and we 

 have no authority for believing that it plunges. 

 Its congener in America, we know, depends 

 entirely on the prowess of another bird for the 

 fish it procures, and is, moreover, very awkward 

 in the attempts which it has been seen to 

 make upon fish in their native element. But 

 though fish is certainly the most favourite food, 

 nothing seems to come far amiss ; dead ani- 

 mals are sometimes even eaten, and he can hp 

 easily trapped by a bait of raw or newly killed 

 meat. In confinement we have observed no 

 nicety whatever, except in discriminating a fish 

 from any other kind of food ; and a female which 

 has been long in our possession, comes much 

 more eagerly to the front of her cage, and 

 appears more alert than usual when a trout is 

 presented to her view. 



The general colour of the plumage of the adult 

 Sea Eagle is a chaste hair brown, of a peculiar 

 dull or opaque tint ; on the head and upper 

 parts it is palest, the centre of the back and 

 tinder parts being considerably darker ; the head 

 and upper part of the neck are covered with 

 lanceolate shaped feathers, which are raised o 



M 



