WHITE SEA-EAGLE. 163 



immediately after being made a prisoner, and while held in 

 the hand, peck at and catch with wonderful rapidity and 

 precision any flies that might pitch within its reach. Its 

 manner of departure from this country would appear to be 

 still unexplained, as it is never seen en route either by 

 landsmen or sailors. When this and other insectivorous 

 birds leave us, winter visitors arrive. The turn-stone, a bird 

 that breeds in Norway, arrives in this country at the first 

 commencement of the mouth, but appears only to make it a 

 temporary resting-place on its way to the south. 



Like many other birds, the eagle sometimes exhibits great 

 changes in the colour of his plumage. This year, during the 

 month of September, I saw a freshly killed sea-eagle, whose 

 colour was a fine silvery white, without the slightest mixture 

 of brown. The bird was killed in Sutherlaudshire ; and I 

 was informed that another eagle had been seen in its company 

 with the same unusual plumage. The bird had quite arrived 

 at maturity, but did not appear to be a very old one. 

 Partridges, pheasants, grouse, and many small birds occasion- 

 ally appear in a snow-white dress; but the birds of prey 

 seldom change their colour. A black swan we read of as an 

 example of a " rara avis ; " what must then a white crow 

 have been thought of by the augurs and omen-seekers among 

 the ancients. Yet rooks and jackdaws, both parti-coloured 

 and white, are by no means so uncommon with us as to be 

 looked on as wonders. 



This white eagle had been probably bred on some of the 

 wild rocky headlands of the north coast of Sutherlandshire, 

 where not even the value of the eggs can at all times induce 

 the shepherds of the neighbourhood to attempt their capture. 

 The sea-eagle is, in its habits, a sluggish, vulture-like bird, 

 feeding chiefly on the dead fish and other animal substances 

 which are cast up by the sea on these lonely and rugged 

 shores, and seldom attacking the lambs of the farmer to the 

 same extent as the golden eagle does. Although it is 

 frequently seen, and its sharp bark-like cry is heard far 

 inland, the usual hunting-ground of the sea-eagle is along the 

 shore, where it can feed on its foul prey, undisturbed and 

 unseen by human eye for months together. Like the golden 

 eagle, this bird sometimes so gorges itself with food as to 

 become helpless, and if then met with, may be knocked down 

 by a stick, or captured alive before it can rise from the 

 ground a sad and ignoble fate for the king of birds ! After 



